Follow us on social

Shutterstock_638265058-scaled

Purges and propaganda in the Trump administration

Trump’s attacks on VOA for allegedly being biased in other ways do not square with the network’s actual output.

Analysis | Washington Politics

Purges of personnel as a technique for enforcing political loyalty have become a hallmark of the Trump administration, affecting vast swaths of the federal government dealing with both domestic and foreign policy.

Now that technique has been applied to a government agency that is supposed to present an objective face to the rest of the world: the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which controls the broadcasting resources of the Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Open Technology Fund.

Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker and close ally of former Trump political adviser Stephen Bannon, recently took over the agency and on his third day on the job fired all the remaining heads of the component broadcasting networks. The director and deputy director of Voice of America resigned on Pack’s first day on the job. There was no apparent reason, and none was cited, for the firings in terms of the performance of the officials involved.

There is no reason to expect that this purge will be any different from others under the current administration, which have subjugated the missions of governmental components to the political cause of not producing anything of substance that Trump would dislike. The possible variation in this case is that the Trumpian line will have a Bannonite twist, making the agency’s output sound a little more like the Breitbart network that Bannon used to run.

Any such development would violate the legal requirement that Voice of America and the other outlets practice objective journalism, untainted by political slant. It would mean losing much of their foreign audiences, for whom the main attraction of VOA and the other networks involved is their objectivity and adherence to truth. For audiences in countries with media heavily controlled by governments, it would mean less opportunity to access unbiased reporting and genuine journalism. It would mean lowered respect for the U.S. broadcast networks, inviting cynicism toward them as just another bunch of propaganda outlets, no different from what any authoritarian regime might use.

Trump’s attacks on the VOA for allegedly being biased in other ways do not square with the network’s actual output. A journalistic practice as simple as the use of a wire service story about China gets depicted by the White House as “promoting foreign propaganda.”

My own interactions with the government broadcasters have shown them to be observing their required standard of objective journalism. Inquiries I get from VOA reporters sound the same as any that might come from an independent commercial news organization.  When I am quoted in the resulting story, there are usually also quotations from those with different viewpoints, including ones supporting policies of the administration.

I frequently have been a guest on a weekly public affairs talk show on Alhurra, which is Middle East Broadcasting’s Arabic-language television channel. The program strives to incorporate contrasting viewpoints. The most recent version of the show’s format is explicitly billed as a debate, with guests recruited for their differing opinions on current policy issues involving the Middle East. My sparring partners on the show have typically included hardliners from places like the Heritage Foundation, about whom the current administration would have no qualms.

Among the other guests who have appeared with me on the program are Fred Fleitz, an acolyte of John Bolton when Bolton was still national security adviser and in favor at the White House. Another is Sebastian Gorka, yet another alumnus of the Trump White House and a proud wearer of the Hungarian Vitezi Rend medal, who is rumored to be a possible choice of Pack to head VOA.

Viewers in the Middle East see such clashes of views on a program funded by the U.S. government and are witnessing first-hand what a free and open political system is all about. They are witnessing the U.S. government’s commitment to the principles of such a system.  It would be a shame to lose that.

One of the time-tested signs of democracies degrading into autocracies is the replacement of truth and objectivity with propaganda, perhaps by turning into a propaganda organ a government element that previously had some other purpose. Worrisome signs abound in the Trump administration, including the branding of a free and independent press as an “enemy of the people.”

It is the manipulation of messages to the American people themselves that is most relevant to the degrading of American democracy. But compromising truth and objectivity in messages sent to the outside world is part of the same process, and a reason to be disturbed by the latest purge in addition to the more immediate negative effects it is likely to have on the perceptions that audiences overseas have of the United States.


lev radin / Shutterstock.com
Analysis | Washington Politics
Diplomacy Watch
Top Photo Credit: Khody Akhavi

Diplomacy Watch: Euro leaders  reeling after Trump-Putin call

QiOSK

Europeans are surprised and frustrated by President Trump’s decision to call Russian President Putin without consulting Ukrainian President Zelenskyy or other European leadership.

The president made good on his promise to begin negotiations with Russia by having a phone call with President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, which he described as “lengthy and highly productive” and indicated that further negotiations would begin “immediately.”

keep readingShow less
Donald Trump Marc Fogel
Top image credit: President Donald J. Trump greets Marc Fogel at the White House after his release from a Russian prison, Tuesday, February 11, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

Trump's peace efforts should be a wake-up call for Dems

QiOSK

In less than 3 weeks, President Trump secured a ceasefire in Gaza, spoke directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, and kickstarted diplomacy to end the Ukraine war. At the same time, he has also put forward some idiotic ideas, such as pushing Palestinians out of Gaza and making Canada the 51st state.

But it raises important questions: Why didn't the Biden administration choose to push for an end to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine? Why didn't the majority of the Democrats demand it? Instead, they went down the path of putting Liz Cheney on a pedestal and having Kamala Harris brag about having the most lethal military in the world while Trump positioned himself as a peace candidate — justifiably or not.

keep readingShow less
europe flags
Top photo credit: Shutterstock/Markus Pfaff

Poll: Europeans see US as 'necessary partner' not 'ally'

QiOSK

Europeans increasingly see the United States as a “necessary partner” rather than an “ally,” according to a new poll of 14 European countries released Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The survey of more than 18,000 adults across the continent was conducted in the weeks following the U.S. presidential elections on Nov. 5, in which Donald Trump defeated his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris.

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.