Capturing News, Capturing Democracy Trump and the Voice of America

The Voice of America (VOA) is the oldest and largest US government-funded international media organization. In 2020, Donald Trump nominated Michael Pack, a right-wing documentarian and close friend of Steve Bannon, to lead the US Agency for Global Media - the independent federal agency overseeing US-funded international media. During Pack's seven-month tenure, more than thirty whistleblowers filed complaints against him, and a judge ruled that he had infringed journalists' constitutional right to freedom of speech. How did such a major international public service media network become intensely politicized by government allies in such a short time, despite having its editorial independence protected by law? Capturing News, Capturing Democracy puts these events in historical and international context—and develops a new analytical framework for understanding government capture and its connection to broader processes of democratic backsliding. Drawing from in-depth interviews with network managers and journalists, and analysis of private correspondence and internal documents, Kate Wright, Martin Scott, and Mel Bunce analyze how political appointees, White House officials, and right-wing media influenced VOA— changing its reporting of the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2020 presidential election. The authors stress that leaving the VOA unprotected leaves it and other public media open to targeting by authoritarian leadership and poses serious risks to US democracy. Further, they offer practical recommendations for how to protect the network and other international public service media better in the future.

Kate Wright is an Associate Professor of Media and Communication, in the Politics and International Relations department at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She researches how different political economies and normative values shape the production of international news. She is the sole author of Who's Reporting Africa Now? Non-governmental Organizations, Journalists and Multimedia (2014) and co-authored Humanitarian Journalists (2022). She is also a former BBC journalist who worked on flagship news programs and investigative documentaries. Martin Scott is an Associate Professor of Media and Global Development, in the School of Global Development at the University of East Anglia in the UK. He has published research on media freedom, international journalism, foundation-funded news, media influence on aid, and news audiences. He authored Media and Development (2014), lead-authored Humanitarian Journalists (2022), and co-authored From Entertainment to Citizenship Mel Bunce is Professor of International Journalism and Politics, and Head of the Journalism Department at City, University of London, where she researches international news production, humanitarian journalism and media freedom. She is author of The Broken Estate: Journalism and Democracy in a Post-truth World (2019), co-author of Humanitarian Journalists (2022), and co-editor of Africa's Media Image in the 21st Century (2017).