With the new Biden administration in place, we’ve quickly seen a series of leadership shifts at the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its related international broadcasting groups, including Voice of America (VOA). Up until his final weeks, Trump-appointed CEO Michael Pack had been installing conservative allies throughout the organization and its affiliates.
Pack resigned on January 20 after he was told that he would be terminated. On the same day, Biden appointed former VOA executive Kelu Chao as Acting CEO of USAGM. Chao quickly fired a number of recent appointees and agency leaders.
On Sunday, January 24, USAGM announced that Chao had replaced the heads of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Additionally, she replaced three board directors that had been appointed by Pack in his final days as CEO.
NPR reported on Pack’s tumultuous seven months at USAGM, with staffers “…characterizing him as seeking political control over their coverage,” adding that, “Pack routinely accused journalists of anti-Trump bias, sought to fire top executives as part of a ‘deep state,’ ominously accused the networks of being receptive to foreign spies and denied requests for visa extensions from his own staffers who are foreign nationals.”
On last week’s Radio Survivor show/podcast, we covered some of the most recent controversies under Pack, including his call for the demotion of a journalist who had asked a serious, yet unwelcome question to the current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Voice of America event on January 11. But that was just the tip of the iceberg, as Pack was also making even higher profile personnel changes in his last few weeks in office. Many of these moves signaled a focus on shifting USAGM and its affiliates in the direction of being a more conservative mouthpiece for the United States.
With Chao now working to undo those last-minute changes by Pack, she emphasized the importance of independent journalism in a statement this week. “I have great faith in these leaders in ensuring the highest standards of independent, objective, and professional journalism,” she said in regards to the new leaders of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
It’s also interesting to note that VOA’s new acting director as of January 21, Yolanda Lopez, had been briefly sidelined by Pack following the Pompeo incident. NPR writes, “On Jan. 12, Lopez was stripped of all editorial oversight of the English-language news hub after one of her White House reporters posed pointed questions to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about his remarks, made after the presidential election, about a second Trump administration.”
For even more history and context about USAGM and Voice of America as well as some scoop about the first few months of USAGM under CEO Pack, listen to Radio Survivor show #265 from September, 2020, on which we had an esteemed panel of historians and archivists who are experts on the topic.
