Donald Trump’s new head of US global media purges news outlets’ leaders, raising alarms
- Conservative filmmaker Michael Pack has also demanded a new emphasis on the Trump administration’s own policy positions via Voice of America and Radio Free Asia
- Worry that the White House’s efforts to counter Beijing are being undermined by its own ideological zeal
With an eye on China, a new Trump appointee tasked with overseeing the US government’s media arm has moved quickly and controversially to overhaul Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and the rest of the little-known US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
In the month since he took charge, conservative filmmaker Michael Pack has fired the top leadership at each of the agency’s news outlets, moved to re-evaluate the visa status of foreign journalists working in them and demanded a new emphasis on the Trump administration’s own policy positions.
But amid growing concern in Washington over Chinese censorship and disinformation, and an urgent debate over how the US should fight back, analysts, cybersecurity experts, current and former employees and members of both parties on Capitol Hill warn that the administration’s efforts to counter Beijing are being undermined by its own ideological zeal – and that the administration’s political strategy is overshadowing its work to thwart China on the technological front.
The latest warning came from US House appropriators, who on July 6 attached a not-so-subtle message to this year’s annual spending bill about the direction Pack is taking the agency.
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China expels American journalists from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post
“Recent action by the USAGM chief executive officer (CEO) … raise serious questions about the agency’s commitment to maintaining the firewall and upholding the highest standards of professional journalism,” the Appropriations Committee report said.
The “firewall” refers to the legally mandated separation between USAGM’s news reporting and the US government’s opinions. It is that separation, analysts say, that allows for honest and critical news coverage from the agency – a stark contrast to the often heavy-handed propaganda that China and other authoritarian countries prefer to broadcast around the world and to their own people.