What Might Kari Lake Have in Mind for VOA? by Bill Wanlund
President-elect Trump’s proposal to name former Fox News journalist Kari Lake to direct the Voice of America produced an immediate public reaction, at least on the liberal side of the left-right divide. Conservatives? Not so much.
In his Dec. 11 announcement on Elon Musk’s social media outlet X [formerly Twitter], Trump said that Lake would “ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media.” He added that Lake “was a beloved News Anchor in Arizona, which supported me by record margins, for over 20 years.” [Lake also was an unsuccessful candidate in Arizona for Governor in 2021 and for the U.S. Senate in 2024.]
Lake responded on X that she was “honored” by Trump’s announcement. “VOA News is a vital international media outlet dedicated to advancing the interests of the United States by engaging directly with people across the globe and promoting democracy and truth…Under my leadership, the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling America’s achievements worldwide…I look forward to leading the Voice of America, and I can’t wait to get started.”
Such enthusiastic, yet neutral and nonspecific, language is characteristic of Presidential personnel announcements as any new administration prepares to take office. However, many mainstream media observers are suspicious of Trump and Lake’s vision for the Voice. New York Times reporter Minho Kim said that, by making Lake his choice to direct VOA, the President-elect was “aiming to put a fierce loyalist who has called journalists “monsters” in charge of a federally funded news outlet that reaches hundreds of millions of people around the globe.”
Kim and other commentators worried about the message that Lake-as-VOA-Director would send to the rest of the world. CNN reporter Brian Stelter wrote, “VOA produces award-winning journalism and, in doing so, promotes democratic values around the world. The US government has historically portrayed VOA as a counterweight to foreign propaganda and a model for free, fair, truth-telling news coverage.” The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling commented that Trump’s announcement “has resulted in widespread concern and outrage, amid fears that she could transform it into a reactionary propaganda arm of the Trump presidency. Lake, for her part, has done little to assuage those fears.”
Some writers seemed to be vying to vilify Lake personally, with a few perhaps ironically using language redolent of that used by Trump himself and his more ardent supporters. The Poynter Report, published by the independent Poynter media training and professional development institute, called Lake “a bizarre pick” to lead VOA. USA Today columnist Rex Huppke described her as a “serial liar and sycophant-on-steroids.”
Most commentators noted that Trump may not directly hire a VOA Director. Rather, the head of VOA is selected by a majority vote of the seven-member International Broadcasting Advisory Board [IBAB], part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media [USAGM], prompting Straight Arrow News anchor Karah Rucker to comment that the Trump announcement “is only a suggestion.” The current head of USAGM is former VOA Director Amanda Bennet, appointed by President Biden in 2022. Trump has stated he will name a replacement for Bennett “soon.”
IBAB consists of six presidentially-appointed, Congressionally-approved members, all with backgrounds in international broadcasting, journalism, or another related field – no more than three from the same political party – who serve four-year terms, plus the Secretary of State. It’s a complicated system designed to remove politics from the Agency’s business as much as possible.
VOA’s independence was put to the test toward the end of Trump’s previous presidential term when, in 2020, he named Michael Pack to be USAGM’s CEO. Some believe Pack’s tenure there should serve as a cautionary tale for Trump 2.0.
Immediately after his investiture, Pack set about purging the agency, particularly VOA, of journalists, managers and others he believed were insufficiently supportive of Trump and his views, and alleging that VOA broadcast uncritically broadcast Chinese propaganda [a subsequent federal investigation reinstated some of those who had been forced out].
Pack is identified as a contributor to the “Media Agencies” chapter of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, an ambitious undertaking involving Heritage and contributions from more than 100 other conservative organizations. Once touted as a “blueprint” for a future Trump Administration transition into power, Heritage dialed back on its promotion after public outcry against its more radical proposals and Trump himself said he hadn’t read it. Among the ideas posited:
- In addition to its mission to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy,” USAGM should “present the truth about America and American policy – not parrot America’s adversaries’ propaganda.”
- The VOA “Firewall”, developed and enshrined in federal law to protect VOA staff against interference by and retribution from government officials, is instead used to “shirk legitimate oversight of everything from promoting adversaries’ propaganda to ignoring journalistic safety [and] is touted when journalists are either promoting anti-American propaganda…or promoting politically biased viewpoints.” Project 2025 declares that the Firewall came about “on the eve of the Senate confirmation of President Trump’s USAGM CEO Michael Pack [and] was designed to throttle the statutory and executive authority of the agency head.”
In August 2023 PDCA’s “First Monday Forum” series of public programs featured a discussion with Kate Price, co-author of the book Capturing the News: Trump and the Voice of America. A YouTube video of that discussion is here.
There is, of course, another hemisphere in the American news landscape. Steve Bannon, a former chief White House strategist during Trump’s first Presidential term and now a conservative podcaster, interviewed Lake on Dec. 12, the day after Trump’s announcement named her as his choice. He opened the interview with a shout-out to VOA, calling it “one of the most hallowed institutions in our government... It's been there since World War 2 as the anti-communist network that over years and years helped us win the Cold War.”
Bannon told Lake that “the great Edward R. Murrow” was the VOA director under President John F. Kennedy. Murrow, he said, “was arguably the greatest of that generation [of journalists] that came out of World War II…[and] you're stepping into his shoes.” [but see following paragraph] She replied, “Well, I think I'm a great communicator, and I understand the importance of information in this moment in history…we've seen how false information, bad information, lies, and the media's slant has affected a whole generation of people here in America.”
Note: In fact, Lake would be stepping into the shoes of Henry Loomis, VOA Director from 1958-65: JFK in 1961 had named Murrow Director of the U.S. Information Agency, VOA’s parent organization, but he never served as VOA’s direct chief. Loomis resigned over a journalistic principle: President Lyndon Johnson, irked by coverage of aspects of the Vietnam War, had demanded that VOA stop reporting foreign policy news that put the U.S. in a negative light. In his farewell speech, Loomis declared, “the Voice of America is not the Voice of the Administration.”
On his podcast the next day, Dec. 13, Bannon said, “We have to seize the institutions now. You have to seize them…the revered, historic Voice of America [has] really atrophied into an anti-American platform. And the people of Voice of America ought to be on notice right now, under no circumstances start destroying documents, under no circumstances should you be doing and locking in things that can’t…be unwound quickly.”
As Trump prepares to return to the Presidency, there are fears that “what’s past is prologue” and that VOA and USAGM can expect ideological attacks to resume. Although VOA’s journalistic independence and freedom from interference by government officials – the VOA Charter and “Firewall” -- were developed and enshrined in federal law to protect against such actions, many are concerned that the language they contain are not specific enough to bar the door against future determined attacks.
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