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The US’s foreign broadcasters may soon be forced to become pro-Trump propaganda

If Trump’s first term is any indication, outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe will face political inquisitions

The agency which oversees them,
the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM),
has a budget of nearly $1bn
and reaches 420 million people weekly in over 100 countries
– numbers that make America’s biggest domestic radio and TV networks look like small fry.

These outlets have long been a target for conservative critics who have felt that they are insufficiently patriotic or too kind to America’s adversaries.

But during his first term, Trump attempted to weaponize the networks in an unprecedented way,
turning them into propaganda outlets for his administration and its brand of far-right politics.

And his recent nomination of former Arizona gubernatorial candidate #Kari #Lake to head Voice of America suggests he wants to do it again.

Trump’s attack on the public broadcasters began in his first term when he sent conservative journalist #Jeffrey #Scott #Shapiro to be a senior advisor to the Office of Cuba Broadcasting,
which oversees Radio y Televisión Martí.

Shapiro accused the director of the office, the award-winning Puerto Rican journalist Maria Gonzalez, of being a Cuban spy
and forced a spurious security investigation to be initiated against her.

When Gonzalez later resigned her post, Martí’s coverage began to reflect far-right themes,
including calling George Soros a “a non-believing Jew of flexible morals”
and decrying the “Islamization” of Europe.

The same problems occurred on an even bigger scale when Trump appointed #Michael #Pack,
an ally of far-right figure Steve Bannon, as the head of the entirety of USAGM.

Pack forced out or initiated spurious loyalty investigations against journalists and executives,
and he also sought to influence coverage in the newsroom in a pro-Trump direction.

As a result, many journalists at Voice of America feared for their livelihoods and began to engage in self-censorship.

Like Shapiro, Pack also accused the journalists he oversaw of being spies,
and during his tenure he refused to renew the visas of foreign reporters working at Voice of America.

Because many of these journalists had reported critically on their own countries’ regimes,
they faced persecution if forced to return home.

But Pack shrugged off the idea that he had any responsibility for the safety of the brave journalists who made the existence of his agency possible.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/19/us-foreign-broadcasters-trump?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other