The announcement comes after the release of an internal CDC email that documented efforts to block the U.S.-funded outlet’s media requests.
Voice of America director Amanda Bennett and deputy director Sandy Sugawara announced their resignations Monday as Michael Pack, their new boss as the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, settles in.
Pack, a conservative activist and documentary filmmaker with ties to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, was confirmed by the Senate earlier this month over Democrats’ objections. In his new role, Pack will oversee VOA and several other government-run media properties.
The resignations come amid new efforts by the Trump administration to influence the reporting of the U.S.-funded but independent international news outlet, as well as complaints by the president and his allies about VOA’s coverage.
“It is time for us to leave you,” Bennett and Sugawara wrote in an email to the VOA workforce obtained by POLITICO, revealing they had sent their resignations earlier Monday morning to Pack.
……..
On Sunday, VOA reported that a top communications official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had directed staffers to ignore media requests from the broadcaster.
……..
POLITICO previously reported in March that Rich, who was named communications director at the Agriculture Department last year, had been detailed to the CDC to assist with communications related to the coronavirus.
The newly disclosed correspondence between CDC employees, released as part of the agency’s response to a Freedom of Information Act filing from the Knight First Amendment Institute, represented an attempt to effectively spurn VOA’s requests shortly after the White House’s attack on the news outlet.
President Donald Trump and his allies have expressed outrage in recent months over VOA’s coronavirus coverage as the administration sought to cast blame on China for the pandemic.
………
In their all-staff message Monday, Bennett and Sugawara did not reference the White House’s accusations against VOA or the internal CDC email, but they did allude to concerns regarding Pack’s objectivity and ability to transform the broadcaster into a political organ of the administration.
Those anxieties have existed since Trump’s election in 2016, when critics feared the incoming president and Bannon would move to weaponize VOA as a conservative-leaning version of state TV.
Bannon previously blasted Bennett in an interview with POLITICO as a “classic ‘useful idiot’ who kowtows to Beijing’s Party Line.”
And although Pack has described Bannon as his “mentor” in documentary filmmaking, Bennett and Sugawara reassured VOA employees that “nothing about you, your passion, your mission or your integrity changes” after their departures.
“Michael Pack swore before Congress to respect and honor the firewall that guarantees VOA’s independence, which in turn plays the single most important role in the stunning trust our audiences around the world have in us,” they wrote.
- Discussion
-
Voice of America director Amanda Bennett and deputy director Sandy Sugawara announced their resignations Monday as Michael Pack, their new boss as the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, settles in https://t.co/wMM6p8t4uE
— POLITICO (@politico) June 15, 2020
This should alarm you. CDC banned VOA because Trump said it's not giving him good press. On June 4, Trump installed a Steve Bannon associate, Michael Pack, as head of VOA's parent agency. Prepare for this impartial government media outlet to become a state-sponsored Breitbart. https://t.co/yNj14IUVba
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 15, 2020
I have to assume this is someone in the White House trolling the entire planet. https://t.co/wmVNoF19pF
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 15, 2020
The hostile takeover, and likely destruction, of VOA is – or rather should be – the major media news story of the past month. https://t.co/7VGdh0dNNl
— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) June 16, 2020
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.