BBG Watch Media
“U.S. taxpayer funded Voice of America (VOA) has problems offering timely analysis of Kremlin propaganda, such as President Putin’s latest defense of the Hitler-Stalin Pact which launched World War II,” former VOA acting associate director Ted Lipien wrote in an op-ed in Digital Journal. He is also one of the co-founders and supporters of BBG Watch
“To no great surprise, I did not find any Voice of America English News (VOA News – voanews.com) reports posted Monday on President Putin defending the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact. The secret protocol to the non-aggression pact between the two dictators led to the outbreak of World War II and the attack on Poland and its occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The pact also allowed for Soviet aggression against Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania. Putin tried to justify the Nazi-Soviet agreement, also referred to as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in his comments during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday in Moscow.”
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“If U.S. taxpayers are to get something for millions of dollars spent each year on VOA and RFE/RL, it should be fact-based, objective news reporting and news analysis, which includes exposing and explaining lies, distortions, disinformation and propaganda. News must also be timely.”
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“VOA still has some outstanding reporters filing news reports in English and in many foreign languages. But VOA English News and voanews.com website operations have been mismanaged and cut to the bone. The overall picture that emerges is a taxpayer-funded media organization in a state of mission confusion and a managerial meltdown. At the same time, Voice of America is needed more than ever to respond quickly and effectively as a news organization with its own Charter to anti-American propaganda from Russia, China, and other countries, as well as from groups such as ISIS which advocate violent extremism and pose a threat to U.S. security.”
READ MORE: Voice of America Disappoints, Ted Lipien, Digital Journal, May 12, 2015