Voice of America’s Vietnamese service journalists deserve enormous praise for their courage and commitment to press freedom. Every day, they take risks for themselves and their families back in Vietnam when they expose the communist regime’s human rights abuses and corruption. But they are now also forced to take risks in exposing behind-the-scenes censorship of their programs by Voice of America managers — the same ones who publicly proclaim their total support for honest and uncensored journalism.
The latest incident occurred last May, when the VOA leadership removed a report and video in response to demands from Vietnam’s Washington Embassy. The Communist Vietnamese government was not happy about the VOA Vietnamese service reporting that its prime minister and members of his delegation were recorded on an open mic at the State Department ridiculing requests from U.S. officials for support of Ukraine under invasion by President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. VOA removed the Vietnamese service video three days after the Vietnamese Embassy’s protest.
VOA refugee journalists from communist-ruled Vietnam brought their complaint to the Washington Post. It not only sheds light on the reprehensible homegrown censorship practiced by feckless federal government managers at the $800 million U.S. Agency for Global Media, but it also reveals the vast gap between the agency’s happy PR and the reality of the mismanagement that is making VOA increasingly impotent.
The censorship was outrageous, as was the nonchalant manner in which senior leaders in charge of upholding the VOA Charter discussed and accepted foreign interference. But the excuse provided by the agency’s management last month was even more appalling. The Voice of America leadership wants everyone to believe that the video disappeared not because of the Vietnamese regime’s pressure but because VOA found the crude but not obscene language used by the Vietnamese officials “objectionable” and in violation of VOA’s standards and FCC regulations. This has to be the lamest excuse for censorship of news in VOA’s history.
Notably, Radio Free Asia, also funded by U.S. taxpayers, left the video in place. One Vietnamese service journalist, quoted by the Washington Post, said, “Our slogan is ‘A free press matters.’ This is so ironic.” It’s harrowing to hear this comment from someone whose countrymen and women lack fundamental human freedoms.
Unfortunately, as further proof of the Voice of America’s growing irrelevance, there were no outcries or protests in the rest of the media or on Capitol Hill against VOA officials’ hypocrisy and violation of journalistic ethics. There were no letters of protest from former VOA managers, editors, and reporters. Current agency employees did not publicly show their solidarity with their Vietnamese colleagues because they feared that under the present management, their careers would be at risk.
The adverse reaction would have been much stronger during the Cold War. Soviet dissent Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whom VOA was barred from interviewing under the Nixon and Ford administrations’ Cold War detente policies, wrote an article in 1982 for National Review titled “The Soft Voice of America.” In it, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist and historian, a target of many KGB smear campaigns in the West, urged the new Reagan administration to reform the U.S. government-funded stations broadcasting to Russia. Pained by VOA’s censorship and timidity, Solzhenitsyn bitterly complained, “Instead of effectively giving us news, VOA helps to keep us ignorant. In order not to violate State Department policy, it gives us a stone in place of bread.” However, he remained hopeful that the Reagan administration would soon make changes in these programs, which it did.
I have much less hope now that such reforms can happen again. But at least this time, the Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi thoroughly checked out the latest charges of foreign-inspired censorship. To all indications, the truth appears to be squarely on the side of the VOA Vietnamese broadcasters.
The reporter noted that his sources in the VOA Vietnamese service asked him to protect their identities. It was not an unreasonable request, as they almost certainly remembered what had happened to other VOA refugee broadcasters, the so-called “VOA Mandarin Five,” who in 2017 went public with complaints against the senior management. Some of them were fired, and others were disciplined over a dispute with the top leaders after being ordered to shorten an interview with a Chinese exile businessman who turned against the communist regime and wanted to expose its influence activities in the United States.
At that time, the Chinese Embassy in Washington made its demands for censorship to the VOA front office. The management categorically denied caving to pressure from a foreign government, but it forced the VOA Mandarin service to shorten the interview. The resulting controversy severely damaged VOA’s credibility in China and among the Chinese diaspora. This happened when Amanda Bennett was the VOA director. She is, as of recently, President Joe Biden’s Senate-confirmed CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA and other tax-funded media entities. She also introduced the “A free press matters” slogan.
The flow of tweets and press releases from the agency pushes the PR narrative that her “excellent leadership team,” which was also in charge when she was VOA director, is doing a splendid job of improving employee morale, increasing audiences, and having a great impact abroad — even, of all places, in Afghanistan. The VOA Vietnamese broadcasters know that their senior leaders left their local Afghan staff stranded when the Taliban took over Kabul, which may explain why they felt compelled to go to the media anonymously. Why are they afraid if the agency’s leadership team is so fabulously competent and employee-friendly?
U.S. Agency for Global Media and Voice of America senior leaders should apologize to the Vietnamese service broadcasters and VOA’s audience for removing the video, and Congress should investigate this in addition to numerous earlier accusations of foreign interference and propaganda in VOA programs to Iran, China, and Ethiopia. They should ask for the Inspector General’s October 2022 report showing that the Voice of America did not have “appropriate oversight of editorial controls, program reviews, and procedures to respond to violations of journalistic standards and principles.”
Lawmakers should also examine the complaints from the exiled pro-democracy Russian and Belorussian journalists who have accused the VOA management of hiring compromised former Russian state media broadcasters, some of whom, in their prior employment, produced anti-U.S. and anti-Ukraine propaganda — in one case, with antisemitic messages. When informed about these charges a few years ago, the VOA senior management took no action for many months.
In a separate move, the VOA management had to remove, “out of the abundance of caution,” news reports by one of its freelancers who was accused earlier this year by authorities in Ukraine and Poland of spying for Russia. The reporter denies the charges. The incident shows how confusion and dysfunction at the agency’s core can easily infect USAGM media networks other than VOA and, to some degree, it already has.
VOA, and especially its foreign-born broadcasters hired after the end of World War II, had a distinguished record of truthful and sober journalism. They exposed communists’ crimes to the extent they were allowed. We did it with great success when I was in charge of the VOA Polish service during the Solidarity trade union’s struggle for democracy in the 1980s. We were successful because the Reagan administration got rid of the diplomatic and internal ideological censorship in favor of Soviet Russia, allowing the Polish service to increase our audience nearly fivefold.
The VOA Vietnamese service journalists deserve stronger expressions of solidarity and support. Former President Ronald Reagan would have never tolerated pro-communist censorship at the taxpayer-funded Voice of America, and neither should President Joe Biden.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Ted Lipien served as Voice of America’s Polish service chief during Poland’s struggle for democracy and as VOA’s acting associate director. He also served briefly in 2020-2021 as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
