Pompey personally delivered his statements to a VOA staff commander audience despite the Covid pandemic, urging them to report that “this is the largest nation the world has ever known.” Pompeo did not mention the pandemic, the insurrectionary violence that shook the Capitol last week, which left five dead, or the role of President Donald Trump in fomenting chaos.
The speech was broadcast live, worldwide, through VOA channels in more than 40 languages in what the Government Accountability Project, a group representing VOA whistleblowers, called “a violation of the law, the norm and the policy “. No questions were allowed after the remarks or the brief on-stage conversation with VOA director Robert Reilly that followed, giving Pompeo a chance to promote the Trump administration’s policies out of control.
The speech deepened concern that Michael Pack, appointed by Trump to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which controls the stock market chains for VOA and other services, is determined to reduce -the mouths of government, a step many say would undermine the credibility and integrity of media operations under the USAGM umbrella.
According to the GAP letter sent to Pack and Reilly on Jan. 8, VOA staff were told the speech would address “the importance of VOA and the challenges the United States faces in today’s world.”
Pompeo took a different view Monday and insisted that “your mission is to promote democracy, freedom and American values in the world.” After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he argued that VOA “lost its commitment to its founding mission. Its broadcasts were made less about telling the truth about America and too often about the degradation of America.”
“It’s not fake news to spread that this is the greatest nation the world has ever known. I’m not saying you ignore our faults. Recognize them,” Pompeo said. “But this is not the ‘vice of America,’ which focuses on everything that does not happen to our great nation. It is certainly not the place to give a platform to the authoritarian regimes of Beijing or Tehran.”
Pompeo also claimed it was “morally wrong” for VOA staff to oppose his speech, using whistleblower denunciation as an excuse to launch a cultural war against journalists listening to him in the auditorium.
“We are all part of institutions with duties and responsibilities superior to any of us. And that kind of censoring instinct is dangerous. It’s morally wrong. And it’s contrary to your mandate,” Pompeo said. Minutes after seeming to suggest that VOA journalists distort their U.S. coverage to get more positive news, Pompeo said, “Censorship, surveillance, political correctness, all point in one direction: authoritarianism, covert moral justice.It’s similar to what we have “We’re seeing it on Twitter, Facebook and Apple, and too many college campuses.”
David Kligerman, the USAGM’s attorney general until he was allegedly forced by Pack last month, said Pompeo’s warnings to VOA journalists betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the agency’s mission and play directly into the hands of authoritarian countries, such as China, which he criticized in his speech.
The secretary’s claims that VOA has “a culture of censorship, awakening and political correctness after the stories that Pompey perceives as unfavorable, unfortunately coincides with a larger attack on the press that we have long seen in this Administration, ”Kligerman said. “It’s a dangerous trope, especially for the Secretary of State, who is broadcasting to that audience of less free countries, such as China, Iran and Russia, that we serve – that journalists will have to tow the party line. it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Agency’s mission, as set out in the Agency’s authorization statute. “
Pack’s actions were controlled by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and the legal actions of the people affected. Last month, in a notable First Amendment case, a federal judge ruled that Pack and his team were prohibited from intervening in the drafting.
And just last month, the Office of Special Surveillance of Federal Surveillance found the agency in what it called “a substantial probability of wrongdoing” and ordered Pack to order an investigation.