Pompeo, despite the Covid pandemic, personally commented on a command hearing from VOA staff and asked them to report that ‘this is the largest nation the world has ever known’. Pompeo did not mention the pandemic, the resurrection violence that shook the Capitol last week and left five dead, or President Donald Trump’s role in encouraging chaos.
The speech was broadcast live worldwide through VOA channels in more than 40 languages in what the Government Accountability Project, a group representing VOA whistleblowers, calls ‘a violation of law, rule and policy’. No questions were allowed after the remarks or the brief conversation on stage with VOA director Robert Reilly that followed, which gave Pompeo the chance to view Trump government policy unnoticed.
The speech deepens concerns that Michael Pack, Trump’s nominee to lead the US Global Media Agency, which manages the wallet for VOA and other services, aims to reduce it to government mouthpieces, a move that many say will undermine credibility and integrity. of the media operations under the USAGM umbrella.
According to the VOA staff, the speech would be about ‘the importance of VOA and the challenges facing the United States in the world today’, according to the GAP letter sent to Pack and Reilly on 8 January.
Pompeo took a different view on Monday, insisting that “your mission is to promote democracy, freedom and American values in the world.” After coming down the Berlin Wall, he argues that VOA “has lost its commitment to its founding mission. Its broadcasts have become less about the truth about America, and too often about the humiliation of America.”
“It’s not fake news for you to broadcast that it is the largest nation the world has ever known. I say do not ignore our mistakes. Admit it,” Pompeo said. “But this is not the ‘Vice President of America’, focusing on all that is wrong with our great nation. This is certainly not the place to give a platform to authoritarian regimes in Beijing or Tehran.”
Pompeo also claimed that it was ‘morally wrong’ for VOA staff to object to his speech, using the bell-ringer as an excuse to start a culture war against the journalists who listened to him in the auditorium.
“We are all parts of institutions with duties and responsibilities higher than any of us. And this kind of censorship instinct is dangerous. It is morally wrong. And it is contrary to your mandate,” Pompeo claimed. Minutes after apparently suggesting that VOA journalists shift their coverage across the US to more positive news, Pompeo said: “censorship, vigilance, political correctness, it all points in one direction – authoritarianism, covered up as moral justice. It is similar to what we “again on Twitter, Facebook, and Apple, and on too many university campuses.”
David Kligerman, the chief executive officer at USAGM until he was allegedly forced by Pack last month, said Pompeo’s reprimand from the VOA journalists betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the agency’s mission and plays right into the hands of authoritarian countries, like China, that he criticized in his speech.
The secretary’s claims that VOA has a “culture of censorship, vigilance, political correctness in the wake of stories that Pompeo considers unfavorable” are consistent with a larger onslaught on the press that we have long seen through this administration. , “said Kligerman. “It is a dangerous trope, especially for the Foreign Minister, to broadcast to the audience in non-aligned countries, such as China, Iran and Russia, that we serve – that journalists have to drag the party line. It is also a fundamental misunderstanding about the mission of the Agency, as set out in the Agency’s authorization law. “
Pack’s actions investigated lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and legal actions of affected individuals. In a notable first amendment case last month, a federal judge ruled that Pack and his team should be banned from interfering in the newsroom.
And just last month, the federal watchdog office for special attorneys at the agency found what he calls “a high probability of violations,” and ordered Pack to investigate.