Voice of America, an international broadcaster of news financed by the United States which was suffocated by the Trump administration in March, may seem very different when it returns in the air.
Kari Lake, the former news presenter that President Trump, took charge of the revision of Voice of America, said on Tuesday that she would be fed by a America News Network, or Oan, a reliable pro-Trump television channel that has propagated lies on the 2020 presidential election.
Ms. Lake, who, in recent years, has set up unsuccessful campaigns for the governor and the senator in Arizona, said that Oan had offered to provide free reports to Voice of America and another point of sale supported by the Americans, the Cuba distribution office. In a declaration on social networks, she described the arrangement “a huge advantage for the American taxpayer”.
“I have no editorial control over the content of the VOA and OCB programming, but I can make sure that our outlets have reliable and credible options while working to develop their reporting and information programs,” said Ms. Lake, using acronyms for the voice of America and the Cuba radiudiffusion office.
Patsy Widakuswara, a former voice chief of America from the White House office who was put on leave, said he was concerned about development.
“We have worked so hard to strengthen the confidence of our brand,” she said. “It is 83 years of good journalism that will be destroyed.”
Voice of America was created in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda, and has long brought news to the corners of the globe where reliable journalism is rare.
In March, Mr. Trump published an executive decree to dismantle the American agency for the world media, the Congress Charter Agency which supervises Voice of America, actually closing the media. The president accused the diffuser of nourishing prejudices against him and described him as “voice of radical America”. About 1,300 America workers were sent home.
The journalists of the broadcaster then continued, saying that Mr. Trump was not authorized to withdraw funding which had been approved by the Congress.
A Washington federal judge ranked on the side of journalists, ordering the Trump administration to bring the programming.
An appeal committee seemed to complicate the question during the weekend, reversing parties of the ordinance of the lower court which forced the Trump administration to restore funding. But the panel has left the requirement that the voice of America reverses programming.
It is not clear how many journalists from Voice of America will return after the decisions of the court.
“Some have already returned,” said Ms. Lake in an email on Tuesday evening. “Some will come back in the future.”
She refused to comment more.
About fifteen employees have been reinstated in recent days, said Ms. Widakuswara, who was not one of them.
Grant Turner, who was director general of the Parental Agency of Voice of America during the first Trump administration, said that the movements to add Oan content would violate a statutory requirement that the broadcaster is “precise, objective and complete”.
He predicted that the content of the OAN would not be clear with the foreign public either.
“They know what the real false news looks like,” said Turner about Voice of America listeners, adding: “They want something that is authentic.”
