LONDON (AP) — It’s called the Voice of America — a storied news outlet that has promised “the truth” since it first broadcast stories about democracy into Nazi Germany during World War II. Now, it’s the voice of a country in which a majority of voters chose incoming presidentDonald Trump, a man famous for insistingthe truth is what he says it is.
What VOA will tell the world about the United States and democracy during a second Trump administration depends heavily on the once and future president. Trump has jolted foreign leaders with statements about somehow adding Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal to the United States. He wants to project America — and himself — as dominant. And fighting independent reporting that conflicts with this goal — what he considers “fake news” — is one of Trump’s signatures.
During the first Trump administration, his targets included Voice of America in an uglychapter that included firings, a lawsuit, whistleblowers and a federal investigation. Media experts and current and former VOA journalists see this history potentially repeating itself in a landscape of creeping autocracy, rampant misinformation and Russian propaganda..
“I expect that VOA will be put under intense pressure to promote the USA. This seems likely to involve ... only selecting news that paints the country in a positive light,” Kate Wright, associate professor of media and politics at the University of Edinburgh, wrote in an email. Trump, she predicted, will try to correct supposedly “liberal bias” at VOA. “The risk is that this will push journalists to create false balance — treating perspectives or statements as equally valid when they are not.”
This time, Trump knows where the levers of power lie. He is poised to test Voice of America’s statutory “firewall” that protects its editorial operations from interference by any government official. Trump and Kari Lake, his choice to lead the newsgathering organization, have been clear about their intent to “reform the media” in a series of statements that have rattled many of VOA’s 2,000 employees and delighted Trump’s fans.
Lake said in an interview published Thursday that her job won’t be to turn VOA into “Trump TV.”
“But it’s also not our job to go in there and unduly criticize President Trump,” she told The Epoch Times. “I just want to see fair coverage."
Already, Trump’s nomination of Lake has resurrected a question that has shadowed Voice of America from its founding: Can a $260 million, government-funded news outlet ever really operate independently?
The law sets it up that way. President Gerald Ford signed VOA’s charter in 1976. Congress tightened its editorial protections in 1994 and did so again in 2020, after a federal judge ruled that a Trump appointee had infringed on the editorial independence and First Amendment rights of VOA journalists.
That was the clear intent from the first words anyone ever heard from the outlet, when the voice of William Harlan Hale beamed a message into Nazi Germany in 1942. “The news may be good. The news may be bad,” Hale announced, in German. “We shall tell you the truth.” That approach carried the outlet through World War II. It survived hearings in 1953 on allegations that VOA journalists were communist sympathizers.
“Unlike Soviet broadcasts, the Voice of America is not only committed to telling its country’s story, but also remains faithful to those standards of journalism that will not compromise the truth,” President Ronald Reagan said at VOA’s 40th anniversary celebration in 1982. Within a decade, Voice of America was broadcasting inside Russia 24-7.
“If you were interested in hearing something different from propaganda, you would seek out these voices,” said Mark Pomar, head of the Russian Service for VOA in the 1980s and the author of “Cold War Radio.”
Trump and Lake, a former Arizona broadcast journalist and a denier of multiple elections, have described a different approach. “Under my leadership,” Lake posted in December, “the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling America’s achievements worldwide.”
Lake’s mission statement is a far cry from what VOA’s charter says. But Trump has made his name upending tradition, undermining institutions and seeking to unravel the so-called “deep state.” He views the Voice of America as “disgraceful.”
Under the charter signed into law by Ford, the Voice of America “will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.” It goes on: “VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.”
And finally, the broadcaster will present the policies of the US “clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.” So by law, Voice of America must broadcast editorials.
There, Wright and others say, lie some potential opportunities for Trump. Leading VOA from the news side of the “firewall,” Lake could have wide latitude to appear on air herself, for example, or to steer coverage to topics the administration favors.
Together, those are some of the factors that could open the door to what’s known as “government capture” of an independent agency, in which a government controls what is broadcast to domestic audiences. VOA is legally set up to broadcast news to international audiences, but in reality, anyone can access it. That leaves VOA open to transforming into a news-like organization that speaks to Trump's American constituency.
“These provisions always risked opening the door to any administration which wanted to turn the network into a mouthpiece,” said Wright, the co-author of the 2024 book “Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America.”
Lake was a broadcast journalist in Arizona for decades, winning two Emmys for her team’s coverage of landmine recovery in Cambodia, a Fox News spokeswoman said. Then Lake quit and ran for governor. She’s falsely denied two election losses — Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020 and her own for governor in 2022. Last year, she ran for Senate in Arizona and lost.
Throughout, Lake built a national profile as an unflinching Trump ally. Her showy on-camera clashes with mainstream reporters — “monsters,” she said — got plaudits online and apparently Trump’s attention as well.
Spokespersons for Lake and for Trump’s transition did not reply to queries about her plans for VOA, including whether Lake intends to appear on air. Current and former VOA journalists who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation said there was a sense of resignation that under Trump, Lake could clean house. Many are thought to be looking for other jobs.
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David Bauder covers media for The Associated Press and reported from New York. Laurie Kellman has reported for the AP from Washington, Israel and London for 27 years. Follow her at http://www.x.com/APLaurieKellman
Laurie Kellman And David Bauder, The Associated Press
