A group of highly paid employees at the scandal-plagued United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and several federal employees who work for its Voice of America news division have found a new way to discredit media critics: They have begun using some of the $944 million in taxpayer money they control to spread disinformation and provide selective legal and logistical support to outside individuals to smear those who expose their actions.
Congress must stop them, because many more American watchdog journalists could become targets of this rogue agency's interference with their First Amendment rights.
With three British academics questioning them, USAGM bureaucrats found a new opportunity to go after perceived media enemies. Help write a bookOn President Trump's short tenure as USAGM CEO Michael Pack.
Unfortunately, the truly horrific cooperative agreements struck between academics and USAGM, at the cost of thousands of dollars in staff time to U.S. taxpayers, have resulted in Cold War-era journalists being linked to “aggressively anti-Communist” and “right-wing” causes. Never mind that I'm a supporter of same-sex marriage, environmental protection, and racial equality, and that I've criticized ultra-conservative Republicans, including Tucker Carlson, in an op-ed for The Hill for being too easily fooled by Vladimir Putin's propaganda.
Although I disagreed with some of Pack's decisions, I never doubted his integrity as a public servant, and he approved my choice of Democrats for senior positions at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He was vindicated. USAGM's Lax Employee Screening This led to the adoption of Former Putin state media propagandist, Apologist for Hamas At least one Russian spy has been found working as a freelance news reporter for Voice of America. USAGM WatchIt's a watchdog website that I co-founded.
USAGM officials have a long history of sabotaging volunteer efforts for USAGM Watch, as it is commonly known.BBG Watch(Before 2018).They registered the domain name USAGMWatch.com to prevent us from using it. (After a two-year battle, we got it back.) One of VOA's star reporters banned our volunteers from following his VOA Twitter account in an attempt to prevent reporting on violations of the VOA Charter.
USAGM did not simply respond to media inquiries from these British professors; 11 senior government-employed executives and eight VOA reporters were interviewed for hours, with unprecedented official permission. The fact that I, an immigrant and American citizen, was having my political views scrutinized by senior U.S. government officials who were officially guaranteed anonymity is a sad reminder of my youth in Communist-ruled Poland.
Incredibly, USAGM also provided legal advice to the British academics and reviewed manuscripts by staff members who were slanderous towards me and former VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasters. The researchers decided not to interview Michael Pack or any current or former VOA journalists who might call into question the information or conclusions. I cannot fathom how a reputable British publisher and three academic institutions could have endorsed such a one-sided methodology.
The researchers' excuse was that further interviews could “interfere” with the US government's “classified investigation.” But if they had asked, some of the VOA reporters could have corrected their many errors. They would have known that the main reason I took the job for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was to evacuate journalists from Russia to EU countries to prevent further arrests by Putin's secret police, and to get reporters out of Afghanistan. Then the incompetent management of USAGM left them under the control of the Taliban.
To these ignorant taxpayer-supported British academics silencing our voices, let it be known that USAGM Watch is not a “right-wing” blog. Its co-founders include former VOA Federal Workers Union leaders. The British professors have also given permission for US government officials to smear one of USAGM Watch's contributors, former VOA senior White House correspondent under President Barack Obama and a lifelong Democrat.
In British authors' ignorant interpretations of Cold War history, we are considered “disaffected.” Contrary to what they write, our response at VOA's Polish service to the challenges of the 1980s was not “aggressive anti-Communism,” but rather a carefully crafted programming policy that more than quadrupled our audience in Poland. Vaclav Havel accepted my invitation to serve as an advisor on one of VOA's projects. I interviewed George H.W. Bush, Cardinal Wojtyla (before he became Pope John Paul II), the Solidarity trade union leader Lech Walesa, as well as socialists and communists.
Far from being “unhappy,” we are the most successful language service in VOA's history in terms of reach and influence, as evidenced by numerous awards we have received from both Democratic and Republican VOA directors.
Meanwhile, USAGM officials retaliated by slandering us for helping bring down the Berlin Wall.
The “anti-communists” within VOA, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty Cold War were not anti-liberal at all. We were anti-totalitarians opposed to Russian colonialism. The largest group of people who declared party affiliation within Radio Free Europe Poland at the start were anti-communist socialists.
Ironically, the British authors, while describing themselves as defenders of pure journalism (they even declined my request for an interview), admitted to working closely with America's lawyers and, egregiously, handed the manuscript over to USAGM for peer review.
Therefore, USAGM officials are directly responsible for any errors or damage caused to the reputation of independent investigative journalism in the U.S. I am a staunch supporter of Bernie Sanders. I once wroteAmericans should not have to support their own defamation.
Ted Rypien is a journalist and media freedom advocate who served as VOA's Poland bureau chief during Poland's successful democratic struggle and later as VOA's acting deputy bureau chief and president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
