When Michael Pack’s long-stalled nomination to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media finally cleared the Senate on a 53-38 party-line vote last month, the conservative documentary filmmaker tackled his job with the zeal any new CEO might apply to a struggling company: clearing out what he considered to be the deadwood and refocusing on the agency’s core mission.
In what critics quickly dubbed the “Wednesday night massacre,” Pack fired the heads of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and the Open Technology Fund and disbanded their advisory boards.
The two top officials of Voice of America had already resigned in anticipation of Pack’s arrival.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner last month, Pack said he believed VOA in particular had lost its way and needed to adhere more closely to its founding charter, which not only requires it to be a “reliable and authoritative source of news” but also to “present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.”
“It was my view that on day one, by changing senior leadership, I could create this change,” Pack told the Washington Examiner. “It seemed better to clean house and start fresh. Far from being a witch hunt of Democrats, it is a very fair, let’s-start-over process.”
But the wholesale purge, just four months before the November election, has raised bipartisan concerns that, however genuine the motive, the unintended consequence will be to tarnish the VOA’s hard-earned reputation for balanced and objective reporting permanently.
“The termination of qualified, expert staff and network heads for no specific reason as well as the removal of their boards raises questions about the preservation of these entities and their ability to implement their statutory missions now and in the future,” seven senators wrote in a letter to Pack this month, including Republicans Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Jerry Moran, and Susan Collins.
“These actions, which came without any consultation with Congress, let alone notification, raise serious questions about the future of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) under your leadership,” they said.
The GOP senators, who all voted for Pack’s confirmation, plus three Democrats who didn’t, wrote they planned “a thorough review” of the agency’s funding to ensure that U.S. international broadcasting is not politicized.
“Regardless of the issues at USAGM that might be addressed during your tenure, the credibility and independence of these networks, as required by law, is critical for audiences overseas living under repressive regimes, the network’s brave journalists who often come under threat for their work, and the future of U.S. broadcasting.”
The mass firings were also challenged in a federal lawsuit filed by four former members of the advisory boards, who argued unsuccessfully that Pack’s actions exceeded his statutory authority and, in the case of VOA, violated a strict “firewall” designed by law to ensure integrity, credibility, and independence from political interference.
“Mr. Pack’s actions this past week constitute the most egregious breach of that firewall in history,” the court filing argued. “It is hard to conceive of a more serious breach of the organizations’ legally protected independence than the wholesale decapitation of their leadership by an ideologically-oriented maker of political films, installed by the president for the stated purpose of altering the organizations’ content.”
In denying a request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the plaintiff’s legal arguments were weak and didn’t justify the extraordinary remedy of preliminary injunctive relief.
“Based on an evaluation of plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the solution is likely not in this Court,” Howell wrote.
The lawsuit pointed to remarks by President Trump and posted on the official White House website that sharply criticized VOA, which it said “too often speaks for America’s adversaries — not its citizens” and that instead of reporting facts has “amplified Beijing’s propaganda” about the coronavirus pandemic.
The offending tweet in mid-April cited unverified Chinese government statistics to state that the “U.S. virus death toll exceeds official China tally.”
As of mid-July, China is reporting fewer than 5,000 deaths from COVID-19, while the U.S. death toll exceeds 130,000, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
At the time, Trump, who has labeled much of the media “fake news” and an “enemy of the people,” attacked VOA in remarks at the White House.
“If you heard what’s coming out of the Voice of America, it’s disgusting. What — things they say are disgusting toward our country,” he said, expressing frustration that his nominee was not yet confirmed after two years. “Michael Pack would get in, and he’d do a great job.”
Trump has a well-known antipathy for news reports he deems to be unfair or inaccurate and has recently turned on his once-favored Fox News for reporting polls that show him losing to Joe Biden.
“Fox News gladly puts up the phony suppression polls as soon as they come out,” he tweeted recently, while urging viewers to switch their allegiance to One America News Network and Newsmax, both reliably pro-Trump.
In an interview last month on MSNBC, former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Robert Gates said he was worried about the weakening of America’s strategic communications capability and noted VOA’s trustworthiness is what makes it an effective tool to counter Chinese, Russian, and Iranian propaganda.
“The truth is, most presidents really got annoyed by what VOA said about what was going on in the United States because it was often very revealing and very honest about problems we had here internally,” Gates said. “But it had a great deal of credibility around the world.”
Journalism organizations fear the damage to VOA’s credibility has already been done.
“President Trump has already made his intentions clear by unfairly and inaccurately disparaging VOA’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic,” said a statement issued by the National Press Club and its Journalism Institute.
“USAGM is not a propaganda arm for the U.S. government. But it is now in danger of becoming one. And that threatens press freedom, the safety of its journalists overseas, and the trust of its global audiences,” said the groups’ presidents.
Pack vigorously disputed that in an email message to the agency’s staff, which, according to a news release from the Agency for Global Media, “was met with an overwhelmingly positive response by staff and grantees.”
One staffer reportedly congratulated Pack and said, “You emphasized that we all have a mission that unfortunately some have forgotten in recent and past years, to the disgrace of all.”
“When I came to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, it was widely reported that I was going to try to turn it into a right-wing news organization,” Pack told the Washington Examiner’s Byron York shortly after taking over. “But I did not do that. For CPB, just like for these agencies, I’ve tried to bring objectivity and balance to their programming.”
“All I’m trying to do is bring the agency back in keeping with its mission,” he insisted. “And I think when I leave here, that’s the way it will be perceived.”
In her ruling, Howell showed some sympathy for the concerns of the litigants but said the debate is a political, not a legal, matter.
“If they are correct, the result will be to diminish America’s presence on the international stage, impede the distribution around the world of accurate information on important affairs, and strengthen totalitarian governments everywhere,” Howell wrote. “Yet, Congress has decided to concentrate unilateral power in the USAGM CEO, and the Court cannot override that determination. If Pack’s actions turn out to be misguided, his appointment by the President and confirmation by the Senate points to where the accountability rests: at the ballot box.”
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.
