Under Trump, Voice of America journalists fear politicization

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Kari Lake to serve as the director of the federally funded broadcaster Voice of America sent a chill through the ranks of the organization, where journalists expressed anxiety about Lake and what the future could hold.

Several of them said they were concerned about this statement in particular: “Under my leadership, the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling America’s achievements worldwide,” Lake wrote on social media late Wednesday evening.

There is one problem, they noted: That is not the mission of Voice of America.

The organization’s charter, signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford, says that Voice of America will “be accurate, objective and comprehensive,” and would represent the whole of the country, not one segment of it.

Trump’s thoughts about the news media are clear: He calls reporters enemies of the people, derides critical news coverage of him as fake and muses about stripping broadcasters of their licenses. In his quest for control over an independent press, he has chosen Lake, a 55-year-old former television anchor who, in her post-news career, has lost political campaigns and often disparaged the press.

The choice of Lake also shows that Trump wants to install yet another appointee who has forcefully criticized an organization she could soon lead.

A Voice of America journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, said Thursday that many of the 2,000 journalists on staff have worked overseas, including from Russia, China and Iran, where the news is controlled by the state. Many take pride in working for an organization whose journalistic independence has been written into law, that person said.

As with most of Trump’s transition appointments, the reality of installing Lake is not as simple as a posting a big reveal on social media.

Here is how the process is supposed to work: In his statement announcing Lake’s appointment on social media, Trump added that he would soon name his choice for CEO of the parent agency of Voice of America, the United States Agency for Global Media. That choice, however, must be confirmed by the Senate.

The appointment of the director of Voice of America usually falls to the CEO of the USAGM, which makes Trump’s Thursday announcement a reversal of the process as usual.

Lastly, a governing board, made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats and the secretary of state, must approve the appointment of the new Voice of America director.

Michael Abramowitz, who is Voice of America’s current director, assumed his role in April. The broadcaster, which was founded in 1942, has an estimated weekly audience of more than 354 million people, with many of those people listening or watching from overseas, and a budget of some $270 million.

When Abramowitz, a former director at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum who spent 24 years as a reporter and editor for The Washington Post, accepted the job, he said he had been drawn to the outlet’s global reach and its mission to counter propaganda and disinformation coming from authoritarian countries like China, Russia and Iran.

“These countries are waging ferocious information warfare aimed at undermining democracies, aimed at undermining the United States, and we need to fight back,” Abramowitz said in an interview at the time. “I think that the VOA is one very important tool for the United States government in this information war.”

Frank Sesno, a professor at George Washington University and a former Washington bureau chief at CNN, got his start as an intern for Voice of America, working on a news feature for listeners who were still learning English. Sesno said in an interview that the appointment of someone like Lake, who has called reporters “monsters,” undermined the work of professional journalists who have come from all over the world to gather news for Voice of America.

“Journalists aren’t monsters,” he said. “Journalists are purveyors of information, and by the way, many of them at the Voice of America have stood up to dictatorships and have been victims of repression themselves.”

He added, “Some of those folks come from countries where they or their colleagues or families have been imprisoned or worse. They’re not monsters. They’re heroes.”

Aside from Lake’s documented disdain for reporters, her brand of politics could be another obstacle for her to overcome — at least for a time. Last year, the Senate approved the creation of the bipartisan International Broadcasting Advisory Board as an extra layer of security against the government installing someone who could politicize Voice of America’s coverage.

That board was created in the wake of Trump’s first term, after he appointed a conservative filmmaker named Michael Pack to lead the USAGM. Pack, an ally of Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was confirmed by the Senate in June 2020, a development that caused a flurry of resignations within Voice of America. After Pack moved to dismiss other employees, he was the subject of a lawsuit accusing him of wrongful terminations.

In 2023, an investigation into Pack’s conduct found that he abused his authority and misused some $1.6 million in public funding.

In a statement relayed by a Voice of America spokesperson Thursday, Abramowitz said he welcomed a “smooth transfer of power” at Voice of America and at the USAGM. But the statement also noted that he would follow the organization’s protocol.

“I intend to cooperate with the new administration and follow the process put in place for the appointment of the director of VOA,” he said.

The Biden administration did not respond to questions about the selection of Lake, but John Kirby, a White House spokesperson, told reporters Thursday that he believed that Voice of America should continue to maintain editorial independence.

“President Biden and this entire administration, and that includes me, personally, have great respect for Voice of America and the work that they do here and around the world,” Kirby said. “We respect that they have an editorial independence, which I think is absolutely vital for them to be able to do their job credibly.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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