Jan 22, 2021

So Much To Do

POTUS Joe Swiffer is kinda hitting the ground running.


One of the priorities is to restore some kind of decency in the mechanisms for getting some honest information about us out to the world.

You could say VOA has always been something of a propaganda thing, but there have been long stretches of it being very straightforward as well. Trump was in the process of taking a giant shit on that one - same as everything else - and that's over now.

WaPo: (pay wall)

At Voice of America, a sweeping ouster of Trump officials on Biden’s first full day

President Biden moved swiftly to oust top managers loyal to former president Donald Trump who had been blamed for recent turmoil at the federal government’s array of international news organizations, including the biggest and most influential one, the Voice of America.

Only hours after he was inaugurated, Biden forced out Michael Pack, the controversial head of the agency that oversees VOA and four other networks that broadcast news to millions of people abroad. This was followed, domino-like, on Thursday by the removal of VOA’s director and deputy director after only a few weeks on the job.

In doing so, Biden appears to be putting the brakes on what critics said was an effort by the Trump administration to turn the news agencies into mouthpieces for Trump’s views and policies.

The federal government spends $637 million annually to support the five news networks — VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Middle East Broadcasting, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and Radio Free Asia. The agencies were established by Congress as an extension of American “soft power,” although the news and commentary they produce is by regulation independent of government or political control.

Voice of America alone broadcasts in 47 different languages, primarily in countries where press freedom is limited or nonexistent.

One of Biden’s first moves Wednesday was to seek the resignation of Pack, a Trump appointee who created a trail of scandal, lawsuits and acrimony in the eight months since he became chief executive of the news organizations’ parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Biden named Kelu Chao, a journalist who has worked at VOA for nearly 40 years, as Pack’s interim replacement. (The Senate must confirm the agency’s permanent chief executive.) And Chao, in turn, dismissed VOA’s director and deputy director, Robert Reilly and Elizabeth Robbins on Thursday, both of whom had been appointed by Pack only last month. Chao named Yolanda Lopez, another longtime VOA journalist, as acting director.


It's always an easy target for asshole Republicans - "Gubmint Media".

And here's another good example of Both Sides Don't.

Under the Dems particularly, things like NPR and PBS and VOA et al were more or less evenhanded - mostly on the level.

But over the years, the "conservatives" have been relentlessly attacking them, making mostly false accusations about their integrity and their attempts to tell the world the truth. They've slandered good people with bullshit about being lefty-librul or straight up Stalinist and totalitarian.

Along comes Trump and we get a very clear picture of what they've been aiming at, which comports almost perfectly with Daddy State Awareness, Rule 1 and Rule 3.

They accuse VOA of being nothing but government propaganda and then try to turn it into exactly that.


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