Top editors at Voice of America News, an independent global multimedia broadcaster funded by the U.S. government, resigned on Monday following the Senate’s approval of President Trump’s appointee for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal agency overseeing VOA.
Earlier this month, the Senate approved conservative documentary filmmaker Michael Pack to head USAGM for a three-year term in a 53-38 vote. Pack’s nomination was in limbo for two years, partly due to Democratic concerns regarding alleged financial self-dealing in his businesses.
In 2018, CNN reported that several people at the VOA’s parent agency felt they would resign if Pack’s confirmation went through over concerns that Pack — who’s known for working on documentary film projects with former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon — would “turn what has been considered America’s voice abroad toward a decidedly more pro-Trump bent.”
Trump himself has recently taken aim at VOA, accusing the government-funded broadcast network of being “disgusting toward our country” during a White House coronavirus task force briefing in April.
In an internal memo to VOA staff on Monday, directors Amanda Bennett and Sandy Sugawara announced that they sent their resignation to Pack who they wrote “has the right to replace us with his own VOA leadership.” Although Bennett and Sugawara did not directly attribute their resignations to Pack’s Senate confirmation, they wrote in the staff memo that they provided a document to him that includes a sampling of VOA’s work, which they believe he will be “impressed” with.
Letter from Bennett and Sugawara to staff: pic.twitter.com/S419ruk4dF
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) June 15, 2020
Bennett and Sugawara’s resignation from VOA comes a day after the broadcaster reported that a top communications official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention directed staffers to blacklist media requests from VOA.
Another American institution on its way to being thoroughly destroyed. Expect increased momentum to dismantle and destroy all kinds of shit until election day and even after he’s lost the election. It’s what snakes do. They knew it when they invited him in.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Sooo…don’t resist?
How many years will it take to remove all these Tump plants in the government? At least a few…people need to remember that and come out in 2024 and vote as strongly against the Republicans then as they apparently will in 2020. It’s going to take many years to clean out the executive branch and pass laws putting limits on the holes Trump has shown there are in oversight, and decades to shake out all the right wing judges who will continually undermine democracy until they leave the bench.
People have to remember that good governing takes work by the people to force it to happen, one election doesn’t change anything for the good but does allow all the good work to be undone.
OT–
‘‘WASHINGTON – Supporters who plan to attend President Donald Trump’s election rally in Oklahoma this week will be given temperature checks, hand sanitizer and face masks before entering the venue as safety measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the Trump campaign said Monday.’’
I wonder if the BOK Center insisted on this.
Well, it sure wasn’t Donald J. Trump or Brad Parscale.