I was hired when I was a contract reporter in Tokyo, Japan, around 2007.
And for three and a half years, I went to New Delhi, India.
I was South Asia Bureau Chief.
Then three years based in Seoul as Northeast Asia Bureau Chief, including coverage of the Fukushima disaster.
And then three years in Bangkok as Southeast Asia Bureau Chief.
Before coming back in 2016 to the United States, I covered the State Department, traveled with Secretary of State John Kerry, and then after Donald Trump was elected president, I went over to the White House for the Voice of America.
When you say almost everybody was put on leave, what's happening right now?
Is Voice of America on the air?
unidentified
Yeah, it's a great question.
There is a skeleton, a Potempkin village of the Voice of America right now, broadcasting a few minutes a day over shortwave radio in Dadi and Pashtu to Afghanistan.
There is a little bit of Chinese material in Mandarin language online.
And there's an attempt to program one hour per day in Farzi for Iran.
When you say 340 million viewers across the world, what was the mission of Voice of America?
And does that mission still hold today?
Or is it outdated?
unidentified
I don't believe it's outdated.
We have a firewall and a charter, which are laws passed by Congress that say that the Voice of America must tell America's story in a fair and balanced manner.
And we have to reflect American institutions and thought.
Voice of America, no matter who is in power at the White House, cannot be the voice of the Democrats or the voice of the Republicans.
It is the voice of America.
And it had been doing this mission for decades.
There's also an aspect like when I was overseas, I was covering disasters on the front lines, civil wars, civil insurrection, and we were reporting from the scene back to the Voice of America.
And then the different dozens of language services would take my material and translate it into their language and tell their audiences what was happening.
We were literally covering the world for the world.
Now, the White House accuses The Voice of America of being a radical leftist organization.
This is thewhitehouse.gov.
And the headline is The Voice of Radical America.
It says that here are some examples.
It says the Voice of America's management told staff not to call Hamas and its members terrorists, except when quoting statements.
According to the Daily Caller, multiple Voice of America reporters have posted anti-Trump content on social media.
And it says that Representative Scott Perry wrote in a 2022 letter that Voice of America has grown exceedingly partisan over the past several years.
There is more, you know, there's a Voice of America headline, quote, what is white privilege and whom does it help?
White privilege in quotations.
What's your response to that?
unidentified
Well, first of all, as I said, we reflect American thought in institution.
We talk about things that are going on and we interview people from the left and from the right.
The Heritage Foundation's experts were frequent guests on The Voice of America, as were those at probably every other think tank in this town.
What I would urge people to do is to make their own decisions about the Voice of America.
The Americans are not the target audience.
We're broadcasting to the rest of the world.
But you can go to VOANews.com.
The stories are frozen in amber from the middle of March.
And you can read all these stories.
If you want to see my material, it goes back more than a dozen years, I believe, online.
And people can watch the TV pieces.
They can read the scripts, listen to the radio stories, and decide for themselves whether they think that there's some bias or a tilt.
As somebody who's pretty active on social media, I can tell you over the years, Mimi, people look at a headline and then without even watching the piece or reading the story, make their own conclusions.
And we've been hit from the left, we've been hit from the right.
And I think when you're getting it from both sides, maybe you're doing a pretty good job.
You wrote a piece for the fulcrum, and you wrote this.
Even before any of the Trump appointees returned to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, incumbent management at VOA sought to appease the White House.
Stories were spiked and headlines massaged.
Those were subtle changes unnoticed externally.
Can you elaborate more and give us some examples?
unidentified
Yes, unfortunately, from the powers that be, who were not political appointees, there was what we interpreted as anticipatory obedience, that maybe if things are softened up a little bit, then when the political appointees come in, they won't be so rough on the place, so to speak.
We warned that that wasn't going to happen because we had been there for the political turmoil at the end of the first Trump administration when there were similar attempts to turn us into what we thought would be a propaganda organization.
What happened is I was put on paid administrative leave with the excuse that my social media was going to be investigated.
And my successor is White House Bureau Chief, Patsy Wee Dakusuar, who was doing an excellent job supervising about 10 White House correspondents from the various language services, was also removed involuntarily from that position.
Coincidentally, Patsy and I had been prominent figures at the end of the first Trump administration, becoming whistleblowers and fighting against what we saw were breaches of that firewall and not adhering to the VOA charter.
It's a law.
We have to follow the law.
Patsy was civil service.
I was foreign service.
We do not take a pledge to any particular administration.
We take a pledge to the Constitution of the United States.
We also sidestepped the charter to be reliable authoritative news instead, being riddled with political bias and outright anti-American sentiment.
Examples, you mentioned it, Chairman, refusing to call Hamas terrorists, glamorizing Che Guevara, airing campaign-style videos favoring President Biden, even broadcasting a graphic depicting President Trump with a swastika over his face on their news.
I wouldn't want that, by the way, even if it was President Biden.
That's totally inappropriate.
And a ridiculous editorial firewall prevents agency leadership like myself from correcting any of the bias or having any say in the editorial content that goes on the air.
Well, she said, quote, ridiculous editorial firewall.
It's a law, and it's a firewall for a reason to prevent exactly this from turning the Voice of America into a propaganda agency.
There is a mechanism to investigate any perceived errors or wrongdoing.
The OA had its own self-correcting mechanism.
I was actually working in standards and practices on a detail for a period of months.
There was an international broadcasting advisory board, which was conveniently fired by the president before Kerry Lake was put in as a special advisor, which a lot of people maintain was an illegal action.
There were also investigations after the first Trump administration when we had the incidents of the breach of the firewall and we went to federal court.
And the Office of Inspector General and Office of Special Counsel investigated and deemed that the journalists at the Voice of America were doing their jobs.
Congress also has a role to play here.
They're the ones who allocate the money for the Voice of America.
They can dictate changes at the Voice of America.
But to have one person come in and essentially ransack the place, throw 1,400 people out of week, out of work, and flip a switch, silencing all of the Voice of America radio and television transmissions in dozens of languages does not appear to be very prudent management of something that a lot of people regard as an 83-year-old American institution.
I want to ask you about this Reuters article from May, and the headline is right-wing One America News to provide news feed to Voice of America.
We haven't heard anything since that.
What's happening with that?
Is that, in fact, what's happening?
unidentified
As far as I know, none of this material has been used on the air.
When you go into the lobby of the Voice of America, one of the TV sets is tuned to One America News.
But as Kerry Lake herself said in that congressional testimony, she cannot dictate legally what goes on the air.
So she's decided just to basically shut everything down.
Putting One America News or MSNBC content on the Voice of America, besides the legal and copyright issues, would not be very balanced programming, obviously.
Voice of America was originating most of its content.
It subscribed to the Associated Press television service, Reuters TV, AFP television as well, to get those video clips of events happening around the world to put in the newscasts.
Well, Kerry Lake also canceled those contracts just before she essentially got rid of everybody.
Now, once Voice of America largely went off the air, where are those people getting their news now about the United States?
unidentified
Yeah, that's a great question, Mimi.
Well, that void is being filled, unfortunately, to some degree by voices coming out of the People's Republic of China because shortwave radio, which a lot of people consider to be anachronistic, it is still being used heavily by the Chinese and others.
The satellite TV feeds have gone silenced.
We've lost our hundreds and hundreds of affiliated TV and radio stations around the world.
We had 24-7 FM transmitters in major capitals in Africa all silent.
And some of that material will be filled, that airtime, empty airtime, by the Chinese and others.
There are others, including the Iranians, Press TV, which is a 24-7 English language news operation.
It does not say very good things about the United States.
They're also not very accurate.
And that's the case with CGTN as well.
And you've heard about, I'm sure, the infamous RT, which used to be called Russia Today.
These are slick outfits, and they're going on cable systems around the world where the Voice of America used to be.
And what's the fear of people getting their news that way about the U.S. and Voice of America not being there?
unidentified
Well, the Voice of America was mandated by law to reflect the United States, what was happening here, warts and all, which builds credibility.
When people saw that the U.S. broadcaster was not only talking about all the great things that are happening in this country, but the debates that we have in this country about issues such as abortion, gun rights, transgender rights, and all of that.
It doesn't mean we're taking a side by doing these stories.
It shows you that there are debates in this country about these contentious issues.
Well, she is definitely invited to come on and hear from our viewers.
And this is Judy in Baltimore, Maryland.
Democrat, good morning.
unidentified
Hi.
It seems to me that so many things that Trump is doing is just like driving us towards an isolationist point of view.
And this is a question, I don't know.
When has being isolationists ever served us well?
You know, in 30 years, it's probably going to take time for the ill effects of a lot of what he's doing to sort of surface.
But, you know, 30 years from now, as China takes the lead in the world and Russia maybe somehow rebounds, I don't know if it ever can, really.
You know, I hope people who support Trump and everything he's doing, a lot of them won't be here, but I hope the ones that are here recognize what they've done to our country.
Yeah, well, the Voice of America was a hard edge of America's soft power, an instrument of public diplomacy.
And we've seen what's happened with USAID, which also to some degree is a part of America's soft power and diplomacy and the massive cuts that are happening with the diplomats and the civil servants at the Department of State.
There's no doubt that this administration wants to scale all of that back.
There were just some amicus briefs filed in federal court this week from dozens of flag officers retired from the U.S. military, former U.S. ambassadors, national security experts, who all told the court that VOA's mission is vital to America's national security because it is an instrument of soft power and public diplomacy, because they realize that putting out this information,
showing what a free press is about, and reporting accurately and fairly can prevent some really bad things from happening in different parts of the world.
So, Jack, tell us why you think Voice of America should stay on the air.
Why do you disagree with President Trump's decision on that?
unidentified
Well, free press, ma'am.
I mean, even though I might not agree with something, you can't silence somebody, other people who might feel that way.
I mean, that's why the men and women of this nation have died and fought for this country, regardless if it's like this, ma'am.
I am not an AR type person.
I am a deer hunter.
And I might not necessarily like an AR-15 that doesn't do me no good because I hunt deer and wild hogs, but it doesn't mean somebody doesn't have a right.
I shouldn't be against them having one if that's what they choose to own.
It's like the transgender.
I do not think that kids should be trained and given steroids and stuff.
When they grow up to be 18 years old, then let them make their own decision.
Well, yeah, it's exactly what Jack is talking about.
We have a problem in this country with media literacy, people not realizing what is a well-articulated news story versus some slot that is disinformation coming out of Russia that somebody sent you on Facebook.
And that's something that I'm working on advocating about in my new role at the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation at the University of Mississippi.
But there's also, with the algorithms and everything, a strong desire for what's called confirmation bias.
People just want to hear their views reinforced.
And, you know, in the old days, you've got the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal sitting on your desk here.
You would read these, and you could have different newspapers that would have different political views.
But you read them, even if you didn't agree with them, because you wanted to be well-informed.
All right, Nancy, getting a little bit off the subject, but go ahead, Steve.
unidentified
Yeah, I was covering the first term of Donald Trump as a White House reporter.
I was on more than 100 Air Force One flights, the trips overseas in the Oval Office frequently.
And my primary job was to relay accurately what he was saying.
Then would come the analysis.
We would go out, if the president said something that was controversial, we would go out and talk to people at think tanks, academics, other politicians to tell, to try to put it in context for people in the rest of the world.
I have a couple statements and a question about public broadcasting.
But the two statements I'll make real quick.
One was about the Trump administration saying that Retro Russia Russia was false, where there were seven individuals that pleaded guilty to the charges.
So you can't plead guilty to something you didn't do, but they keep saying it's a lie.
And the other thing is, why, here's my question, and I'll leave the other out.
The question is, why is it every time we get a Republican administration, they want to eliminate public broadcasting, anything that will benefit the poor or the smaller people around the world?
If they are so American and so First Amendment and Second Amendment rights, why do they want to eliminate public broadcasting?
unidentified
I'm not a Republican member of Congress or someone who works in the White House, so you would have to ask them about it.
I would just say, you know, there are a lot of people, Republican and Democrats, who believe that public broadcasting serves a very vital role in this country.
As the caller pointed out, it does serve.
I drive across the country, turn on the radio, and sometimes the only thing you can hear that is not, say, religious broadcasting is the public radio station.
These are vital parts of a culture in a small town.
So you can't really get it in the United States unless you get it off.
unidentified
Well, you can go to VOANews.com and look at every story we're doing.
You can go to the websites or could of the different language services.
You could pick it up on the shortwave radio for the few shortwave radio broadcasts that were still left.
It wasn't intended and it's not written for Americans.
We're trying to explain in Swahili or in Korean for people in North Korea, for example, or in Ukrainian or Spanish about what's happening in this country.
You said that you had experienced the first Trump administration and that there was some animosity there from the administration.
When President Trump won the election again and was coming back into office, were you expecting VOA could be shut down completely?
unidentified
No, I don't think anybody was.
We knew that there were probably going to be changes because I'm sure something that's been discussed on this program many times, Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation, there was a chapter in there about the Voice of America and our parent agency, USAGM.
And it was obvious that, according to that playbook, that they did want to make changes.
For example, putting the Voice of America under either the State Department or the National Security Council.
So we expected there would be a battle for the soul of the Voice of America, but we did not expect that a dagger would be driven through its heart.
Is there any chance that these cuts that have been instituted to VOA are going to be reversed and the funding come back?
unidentified
And did I hear it said that Voice America isn't broadcasted here in the United States?
Yes, that is correct, Dan, because it's an external broadcasting service.
The funds for the Voice of America have not legally been cut.
Those funds were allocated by Congress, and there was this arbitrary and capricious move made not to spend this money.
Also for Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, which are under the U.S. AGM umbrella, those broadcasters are grantees, where Voice of America and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting are 100% under the federal government.
There's big discussion right now about the fiscal year, next fiscal year federal budget.
And I know in the House and in the Senate, there are debates about how much money should be allocated for U.S. international broadcasting.
So for those who would like to see the Voice of America revived and funded again, they need to contact their representatives in Congress.
All right, that's Steve Herman, former Voice of America national correspondent, currently the executive director at the University of Mississippi Jordan Center for Journalism, Advocacy, and Innovation.
He's got a substack called News Guy if you'd like to check that out.
Steve, thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified
Thank you for having me, Mimi.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington to across the country.
AI's Energy Impact00:00:51
unidentified
Coming up Tuesday morning, we'll talk about the Texas GOP's redistricting to add more Republican congressional seats and how Blue State governors are responding with semaphore politics reporter David Weigel.
Then, the University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato discusses the center's new book, Campaign of Chaos, about the 2024 election and current political landscape with the upcoming midterm elections.
And Josh Smith, energy policy lead at the Abundance Institute, on President Trump's AI action plan and AI's impact on the energy sector.
The Spinach King00:01:45
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C-SPAN's Washington Journal, join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Tuesday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org.
On Tuesday, a look at efforts to commit academic espionage at U.S. college campuses by foreign nations such as SHIIDA.
Participants will discuss how to strike a balance between having open collaboration and protecting national security.
From the Heritage Foundation, watch live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org.
The patriarch C.F. Seabrook was hailed as the Henry Ford of agriculture.
His son, Jack, a keen businessman, was poised to take over what Life magazine called the biggest vegetable factory on earth.
His son John Seabrook has written about his grandfather and father in his book called The Spinach King.
It's subtitled The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty.
Work on the spinach king started in the early 1980s when John Seabrook was with the New Yorker magazine.
John Seabrook says, I had a grandfather who was a champion of white supremacy, a true believer in the superiority of the Nordic Christian male.
unidentified
Author John Seabrook with his book, The Spinach King, The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.