Voice of America CEO Accused of Fraud, Misuse of Office All in One Week | Hacker News Reader

Voice of America CEO Accused of Fraud, Misuse of Office All in One Week

npr.org

80 pointssecfirstmd24 comments

There is some rather deep irony in whistleblowers accusing Pack of trying to propagandize Voice of America. To provide some context, it was founded during WW2 as a "counter-propaganda" broadcaster. It continued this role during the Cold War, albeit under the Department of State. In fact, up until 2013, VOA broadcasts were banned in the US under the Smith-Mundt Act, which regulates propaganda activities conducted by the Department of State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act).

Another irony is NPR breaking this news, as they came under attack for bias during the Obama administration.

Like anyone who provides information, NPR is accused of bias by the people who are made to look bad by that information.

I'm not claiming NPR is biased, I'm saying it's amusing that it was the three-letter U.S. public news service that got embroiled in scandal in the last administration. Not that the scandal was actually substantiative.

NPR receives no federal funding. Voice of America is 100% federaly funded.

> I'm not claiming NPR is biased, I'm saying it's amusing that it was the three-letter U.S. public news service that got embroiled in scandal in the last administration. Not that the scandal was actually substantiative.

I thought that it was probably so, but my point is that accusations of bias are not the same as being "embroiled in scandal"; rather they are a routine part of daily operations for any news outlet.

Pack seeks to politicize an apolitical organization. That is different from propaganda which is pro-US. Do you not see the difference?

And no one foresaw that a literal government-funded propaganda outlet would become subject to partisan squabbling once it became able to influence the US population directly? The structural problem here appears to be letting VOA target the domestic American market, not this particular CEO.

I think a lot of agencies have policies, traditions, and etc to try to make them non political. Many are quite successful at it.

These aren't mysteries / 'no one foresaw' situations.

No, it is not deep. It is one thing to defend the interests of your country and another - of your boss. At least, there must be difference for americans, everyone else is on the sideline and eating popcorn.

So, yet another instance of northern americans complaining about having a taste of their own medicine...

Not having to read about Pack and Ajit Pai’s is one of thing things I am most looking forward to.

An employee of Voice of America is accused of propagandizing it?! Say it isn't so!

He needs to start a Radio Free America to save his legacy.

FYI for some who may not know. U.S. Agency for Global Media covers a lot of different things, VOA, Radio Free Asia etc. Also from a tech point of view lots of open source tools like Signal, Tor, Psiphon, Briar and our own app Umbrella security training app along with a huge amount of internet freedom/privacy training, research etc would not have been developed and done without the support of the Open Tech Fund.