The Trump administration is seeking to limit the safeguards protecting the editorial freedom of federally funded news groups that broadcast overseas, raising concerns that it could undermine an independent source of news in parts of the world with few of them.
Two of the organizations, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, earlier this month received a draft funding agreement that could give President Trump’s political appointees more control over their operations. The administration could have the power to veto their new hires for editors in chief, chief executives and members of their boards, and could unilaterally shut down parts of their news operations with a two-week notice, according to a draft of the proposal reviewed by The New York Times and two people familiar with the matter.
The proposed agreement is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to severely shrink and influence the news content of media groups that receive federal dollars.
The administration’s push for a funding agreement that could give Mr. Trump’s deputies broad authority over personnel and programming decisions signals its interest in reshaping the news agencies into networks more friendly to Mr. Trump’s agenda, said Kate Wright, a media and communications professor at the University of Edinburgh.
“It is about strengthening control over those networks,” said Ms. Wright, who has studied how state-funded broadcasters can be captured by partisan politics. “This is deeply worrying for editorial freedom.”
The two news organizations declined to comment, citing the ongoing contract negotiations.
Kari Lake, who leads the federally funded news groups’ parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, rejected the idea that the administration was seeking to influence editorial decisions. She characterized the premise of this article as “fake news spin,” and said her agency’s proposed agreement was not “editorial interference,” but an attempt to ensure accountability of taxpayer dollars.
“Under this administration, U.S.A.G.M. answers to American taxpayers, and publicly funded outlets will serve our national interest,” Ms. Lake said in a statement. “Accountability is back, and much to the chagrin of globalists.”
Last March, Mr. Trump signed an executive order effectively dismantling the global media agency that oversees federally funded news groups. He called Voice of America, a federally funded news group created in 1942 to fight Nazi propaganda, “a total left wing disaster,” and put nearly all its 1,400 journalists and support staff on paid leave.
Ms. Lake then terminated funding to other federally funded news groups without much explanation.
But courts have largely halted efforts to shut down the groups, and Congress has reauthorized funding for them, bucking Mr. Trump’s wishes. Members of Congress from both parties were concerned that closing U.S.-funded news groups would allow Russia and China to saturate audiences with disinformation.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which are private nonprofits, now have to sign a contract with the Trump administration to receive the money that Congress authorized.
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The administration’s proposal stripped a section on editorial freedom that appeared in last year’s agreement, which said the administration “acknowledges and affirms” the safeguards “meant to preserve” journalistic independence.
The safeguards, known as the “firewall,” prohibit political appointees from meddling in the news organizations’ editorial decisions, an effort to ensure that foreign audiences trust their journalism and to dispel accusations that the U.S. government is funding propaganda.
Instead, the proposal would shift the burden of providing an objective news service from the government to the recipients. It states that “nothing herein shall be interpreted to cause” the news groups “to violate the highest standards of professional journalism,” while requiring their coverage to be “consistent with the national interests of the United States.” The document says that the administration can terminate funding for noncompliance with “any term” of the agreement.
Jamie Fly, a former chief executive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said that politicized content lacking balance would undermine the news groups’ credibility, hurting their mission to provide news suppressed by authoritarian governments.
“Propaganda is not effective and ultimately a waste of taxpayer dollars,” he said.
The administration’s attempt to weaken editorial independence at the press organizations comes after Voice of America ran stories that appeared to violate the law that mandates unbiased coverage.
In January, Voice of America’s Chinese news service published an article that praised Mr. Trump for his “deal-making skill” and “peace-through-strength diplomacy,” citing his dubious claim that he stopped eight wars. It did not feature voices countering the president.
The article also included a heavily edited image of Mr. Trump among what appeared to be clouds and the world map, with an American flag in the center.
“This is not journalism,” said Patsy Widakuswara, a former White House correspondent at Voice of America. “This is being the mouthpiece of an administration.”
Before the cuts, the federally funded news networks had more than 420 million weekly listeners and garnered widespread recognition, including awards for reporting on China’s human rights abuses of Uyghurs, the Russian military’s death toll from its invasion of Ukraine, and anti-government protests in Iran that began after a young woman was detained for not wearing a hijab and died in police custody.
Minho Kim reports on breaking news for The Times from Washington.
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