BBG Watch Commentary EXCLUSIVE
The Voice of America (VOA) is a poorly managed, U.S. taxpayer-funded entity ($221 million in FY 2017) no longer sure about its mission after the Cold War. Run by Obama administration era appointees, some of Voice of America journalists have engaged in blatant anti-Trump polemics in violation of its VOA Charter. Because of their partisanship and bias, they may have lost their right to be called the “Voice of America” and should not be surprised that other “Voices of America” have shown up on social media.
VOA has been overseen in recent years by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an equally dysfunctional federal agency ($748 million in FY 2017, including VOA), which even former U.S. Secretary of State and unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called in 2013 “practically defunct.”
The official Voice of America (VOA) Facebook page name and address is: “Voice of America – VOA” https://www.facebook.com/voiceofamerica/.
It appears that the bloated, ineffective and distracted BBG and VOA management pays little attention to what is going with the Voice of America brand-name on Facebook, or in any case, they are unable to protect it. After having lost its former relevance abroad and within the U.S. policy establishment in Washington, the management does not seem to be able to do anything about at least two other entities using “Voice of America” name on Facebook, further confusing anybody who may have once heard of the original, U.S. government-connected and funded VOA.
Both of the non-governmental entities using the Voice of America name appear to be largely conservative online communities supporting President Donald Trump and his policies, although their community pages include a broad spectrum of opinions, some not normally associated with conservative Republicans. Some posts are religious in nature. Some of those posting to “The Voice of America” community page appear to be African Americans, Africans or Latino Americans who support Donald Trump and do not find their support for him to be inconsistent with condemning racism.
Several of the posts we have seen on “The Voice of America” Facebook page are memes attacking Hillary Clinton and other Democrats.
“The Voice of America” also has posts critical of violent Antifa activists.
A Facebook Community calling itself “The Voice of America” has close to 148,000 followers as of August 29, 2017. “The Voice of America” Facebook page includes this description: “We are here to hold all elected officials accountable
It’s not about left or right anymore….We just want our country back.”
The other Facebook community with “Voice of America” in its name is “Voice of America Today.” The Facebook page of “Voice of America Today” includes the following description: “Voice of America today was founded to counter-act the mainstream media’s open bias against conservatism, capitalism, and the U.S. Constitution.”
“Voice of America Today” Facebook page includes posts defending President Trump from attacks by his political opponents who have used F-words to describe him. At least one U.S. government federal employee of the official Voice of America VOA newsroom used an F-word in a personal Facebook post as an insult against Donald Trump.
Some of “The Voice of America” and “Voice of America Today” Facebook posts may be in poor taste or highly polemical, but the official U.S. government-run and taxpayer-funded “Voice of America (VOA)” posted a one-sided video in which Donald Trump was called various insulting names, including “dog” and “pig.”
The VOA video shown below includes a critical commentary describing how such a video production by VOA paid for by U.S. taxpayers violates the U.S. law governing the operations of the Voice of America. After much criticism, the VOA video was eventually removed from Facebook by the BBG/VOA management.
The official U.S. taxpayer-funded VOA produced many other similarly one-sided anti-Donald Trump pieces during the 2016 election campaign. The Voice of America was also accused by Senator Bernie Sanders’s supporters of “state-media bias.” The official U.S. taxpayer-funded Voice of America can hardly argue that some of its Facebook posts were in better taste than some of the posts on “The Voice of America” and “Voice of America Today” Facebook pages.