BBG – USAGM Commentary
In an article for The National Interest website, reporter Shelby Talcott, who recently broke the story on partisan bias and violations of social media policy by some of the U.S. government-employee-editors of taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA), asserted in the article’s headline that “Voice Of America Ignores Reasons For Trump’s Criticism Of Rep. Ilhan Omar.”
In her article, Talcott quoted David Jones, VOA’s Deputy Managing Editor:
“It was not intended to weigh the pros and cons of President Trump’s recent remarks. The profile dealt in some detail with the controversy over her remarks about Israel. Thank you for your interest in VOA’s coverage.”
The DCNF asked whether the news agency believes that a foreign audience deserves context regarding why Trump’s comments were made. The DCNF also asked if the profile was about Trump and if three paragraphs sufficed for Omar’s Israel remarks.
“The person profiled was Ilhan Omar. Beyond that we stand by our coverage and do not plan to comment any further,” Jones told the DCNF.
The Voice of America is run by its director Amanda Bennett who was selected for her position in 2016 during the Obama administration by the U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO John Lansing. USAGM, VOA’s parent federal agency, was previously known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).
Talcott noted in her article:
VOA has been vocal about issues regarding Trump, but has stayed silent on other issues such as the attack of conservative journalist Andy Ngo at an Antifa rally. An editor for VOA was discovered last week to have a Facebook page filled with anti-Trump rhetoric, despite a VOA media policy barring biases on public platforms.
Omar has made several anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments, almost all of which were not reported by VOA in the article.