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Voice of America's appointment of Trump ally sparks purge fears

Democrats have warned that the new Trump-appointed head of the US global media agency that oversees Voice of America (VOA) and other broadcasters is planning a purge of career officials that could spell the end of its editorial independence.
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Earlier this month, Trump persuaded Republican senators to confirm Michael Pack, a conservative film-maker and associate of the rightwing ideologue Steve Bannon, as the new head of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), even though Pack is currently under criminal investigation for allegedly diverting $1.6m in funds from a charity organisation he runs to his private film company, Manifold Productions.
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Eliot Engel, the Democratic chair of the House foreign affairs committee, issued a late-night statement on Tuesday warning that Pack planned to fire the top ranks of USAGM career officials on Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, congressional aides said the feared purge appeared to have been put off after Engel’s intervention, but that the threat remained.

“My fear is that USAGM’s role as an unbiased news organization is in jeopardy under his leadership. USAGM’s mission is ‘to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy’ – not to be a mouthpiece for the president in the run-up to an election,” Engel said in his statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/17/voice-of-america-agency-purge-trump-ally-michael-pack

Federal inquiry details abuses of power by Trump's CEO over Voice of America

Within two days, Pack was examining ways to remove suspect staffers, a new federal investigation found. The executives he sidelined were later reinstated and exonerated by the inspector general's office of the U.S. State Department. Pack ultimately turned his attention to agency executives, network chiefs, and journalists themselves.

The report, sent to the White House and congressional leaders earlier this month, found that the Trump appointee repeatedly abused the powers of his office, broke laws and regulations, and engaged in gross mismanagement.
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Taken together, they depict Pack's brief tenure as an ideologically driven rampage through a government agency to try to force its newsrooms and workforce to show fealty to the White House.

Pack punished executives who objected to the legality of his plans, interfered in the journalistic independence of the newsrooms under his agency, and personally signed a no-bid contract with a private law firm to investigate those employees he saw as opposed to former President Donald Trump. The law firm's fees reached the seven figures for work typically done by attorneys who are federal employees.

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/21/1177208862/usagm-michael-pack-voa-voice-of-america-investigation-trump-abuse-of-power

What would Project 2025 do for (or to) journalism?

By Pack’s side throughout all this was Morvared Namdarkhan, who goes by Mora Namdar professionally. She was Pack’s acting VP of legal, compliance, and risk — “compliance” not being one of the Pack regime’s strengths! — and she is the author of the Project 2025 chapter on USAGM. (Namdar is mentioned more than 50 times in the 145-page federal investigation into Pack’s tenure, the one that found he had “abused his authority” and “engaged in gross mismanagement and gross waste.”)

Namdar considers the USAGM “firewall” — meant to separate the journalism it produces from the influence of top political appointees — a tool to sneak in “anti-American propaganda” and bias:
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Namdar complains about “the agency’s media organizations joining the mainstream media’s anti-U.S. chorus and denigrating the American story — all in the name of so-called journalistic independence. Indeed, content during the Trump Administration was rife with typical mainstream media talking points assailing the President and his staff.”

Her solutions? Personnel decisions that currently rest within USAGM must be moved to “the Department of Defense and the Office of Personnel Management.” Its budget should be cut to $700 million from 2023’s $885 million. USAGM “should report to the President and coordinate activities with the National Security Council,” to which there should be “clear lines of command” — or else putting the entire agency under the State Department.

Otherwise, shut the whole place down:

If the defacto aim of the agency simply remains to compete in foreign markets using anti-U.S. talking points that parrot America’s adversaries’ propaganda, then this represents an unacceptable burden to the U.S. taxpayer and a negative return on investment. In that case, the USAGM should be defunded and disestablished. If, however, the agency can be reformed to become an effective tool, it would be one of the greatest tools in America’s arsenal to tell America’s story and promote freedom and democracy around the world.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/09/what-would-project-2025-do-for-or-to-journalism/