I cannot remain silent because those who refuse to expose terrorism or delay condemning it today will find themselves unable to stop it later. Ted Lipien, former Voice of America Polish Service chief during the Solidarity trade union movement’s peaceful and successful struggle for national independence and democracy in Poland. Washington Times, November 21, 2023.
USAGM Watch Media Commentary
If you let a lie stand unchallenged, people will assume it’s true. When news organizations refuse to call Hamas “terrorists,” they become complicit in perpetuating a lie. When the government-funded Voice of America (VOA) in the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) forbids its journalists to describe as terrorists those who deliberately target and murder defenseless civilians, including women and children, the lie will guide some people’s opinions and actions to see murder as part of a fight for freedom. They will accept barbaric violence as normal and be at peace with it.
Challenging these VOA federal employees is not a blow to the free press. It may save it. In violation of the federal VOA Charter, their reporting is now informed by a far-left ideology of excusing violence of what they think are anti-colonialist freedom fighters but who are, in fact, right-wing war criminals who murder Jews and use Palestinians as human shields. I call it Walter Duranty journalism after the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Moscow correspondent who, in the 1930s, lied about Stalin’s victims, including millions who had perished from forced starvation in Ukraine’s Holodomor.
READ MORE: Why I can’t be silent when Voice of America bans calling Hamas’ terrorists’ | Washington Times op-ed by Ted Lipien
Voice of America bans calling Hamas terrorists illustration by Linas Garsys / The Washington Times