Congress Needs to Investigate Censorship at the Voice of America, Says Ted Lipien of Free Media Online
There is a long history of censorship at the Voice of America (VOA) in the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Congress needs to launch a bipartisan investigation of the recent censorship of the VOA Vietnamese Service news report.
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(YorkPedia Editorial):- Portland, Oregon Jan 8, 2023 (Issuewire.com) – Tadeusz “Ted” Lipien, a former Voice of America (VOA) acting associate director (2005-2006) and former VOA service chief, editor, and reporter during Poland’s struggle for democracy in the 1980s, who now leads pro-free press activism at the Free Media Online NGO, asks in a new commentary for a bipartisan investigation of the VOA management’s decision to censor a news report by the VOA Vietnamese Service.
In May 2022, Voice of America managers accepted without any challenge completely bogus claims first reported by YouTube and Facebook, presumably at the instigation of Vietnam’s government, that a VOA Vietnamese Service video report that embarrassed the country’s communist leader violated privacy rights and copyright law. They did not make even the weakest attempt to resist intimidation and immediately agreed to pull the news report from all online platforms when Vietnam’s Embassy in Washington contacted the VOA Director’s office.
While it took the VOA executives only a few hours to decide to censor, it took them seven months and a few more weeks after the Washington Post story appeared in print to reverse their banning of the VOA video.
The Voice of America operates within the federal U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
The Voice of America slogan, “A Free Press Matters,” should read “A Free and Honest Press Matters,” Lipien wrote. Congress should investigate the censorship incident in a bipartisan manner and should remind the agency’s leaders of the existence of the VOA Charter, which mandates that Voice of America news must be accurate, balanced, and comprehensive, Lipien said in the conclusion of his commentary.
