BBG Watch Media
A longtime critic of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), New York Times best-selling author, political commentator, and investigative journalist Kenneth R. Timmerman, who accused the Voice of America Persian Service of posting “wild fantasy-land libel partisan screeds” against the Donald Trump 2016 election campaign and of being “transformed into the Voice of Tehran,” has published a new op-ed in The Daily Caller in which he charges that “From ‘fake news’ to the glorification of terrorists, the Voice has lost her way.”
Timmerman, who is also a Republican Party activist, is one of several persons believed to be interested in reforming the agency if President Trump chooses to nominate someone to become the BBG’s first permanent CEO. Any nominee would be subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. The current BBG CEO, Obama administration holdover John F. Lansing, was not a presidential appointee and was not vetted or confirmed by the Senate. A former entertainment cable TV manager, Lansing had no prior experience in U.S. government service, U.S. foreign policy or public diplomacy.
KENNETH TIMMERMAN: Born during the life and death struggle against Nazism, the Voice of America recently turned 75. During her long years of service, she provided a beacon of hope to captive nations in Europe, and helped keep that hope alive during decades of Soviet occupation.
[…] But lately, the venerable Voice has been behaving with an immaturity, lack of vision, and unprofessionalism that have dismayed many of her dedicated, long-serving employees, who regularly critique the agency on the BBG Watch blog, as well as her supporters on Capitol Hill.
“On any given day, you can go to VOA websites and find example after example of shoddy journalism, fake news, misleading headlines, and slanted reporting,” Timmerman wrote. “This type of misrepresentation occurs every day in stories from the VOA Central newsroom, despite hype by VOA Director Amanda Bennett to have reformed and improved its operations,” Timmerman also charged.
READ MORE: America Has Lost Her “Voice” By Kenneth Timmerman, The Daily Caller, April 4, 2017.