Senior advisor to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), parent firm of Voice of America (VOA), Kari Lake claims that far-right One America News Network will provide “newsfeed services” to VOA and other US government-funded media channels.
In a Tuesday post on X, Lake stated that the network—which routinely shows pro-President Donald Trump programming—would provide its news and video content for free.
Many of the VOA reporters who have been sacked after Trump started his second term in January as part of his administration’s attempts to cut the federal workforce and stifle any alleged criticism of his policies have become enraged by the OAN cooperation.
“What they have done, in effect, is replace our 83-year legacy of producing reliable, authoritative news with the hard work and commitment of countless journalists with a contract to outsource our news-gathering to a clearly partisan source,” said VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, on indefinite leave.
Owned by Herring Networks, San Diego-based, OAN was the focus of defamation lawsuits over its untrue assertions that Trump emerged victorious in the 2020 presidential contest. Trump has kept making such assertions since his 2024 election.
Officials from the USAGM and OAN did not answer calls for comments right away.
Trump ordered the gutting of USAGM and Lake to put almost all VOA staff on leave in March. Saying the agency was “irretrievally broken” and biassed against Trump, she said its “product often parrots the talking-points of America’s adversaries.”
Former television news anchor Lake, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for US senator and Arizona governor, has attempted to revoke agreements with wire services including Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, according to a March 13 X post.
She said at the time that instead of paying outside organisations, the agency should create its own news material.
Claiming that their First Amendment rights were violated by terminating and threatening to terminate most USAGM staff, Widakuswara and a number of VOA employees sued Lake and the Trump administration.
On Saturday, a federal appeals court reversed a decision ordering the Trump administration to resume employment of more than 1,000 VOA staff members.
