Media Agencies U.s. Agency For Global Media

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democ- racy.1 However, this mission statement does not reflect the current work of the agency. The mission is noble, but the execution is lacking. To fulfill its mission, USAGM should also aim to present the truth about America and American policy— not parrot America’s adversaries’ propaganda and talking points.2

OVERVIEW

Originally formed as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) in 1994, the BBG changed its name in 2018 to the United States Agency for Global Media. The USAGM is a sub-Cabinet agency of the U.S. government with a budget of just under $1 billion. The agency oversees two government broadcasting networks: the Voice of America (VOA) and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB). USAGM also oversees 100 percent of the grant funding for several “independent” grantee organizations, including the Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and the newly formed Open Technology Fund (OTF).3

The Voice of America provides news and information in 48 languages to a weekly audience of more than 326 million people worldwide. For more than 80 years, VOA journalists have supplied news and information about the U.S., audience-specific regions of interest and concern, and the world at large. VOA radio and television signals are broadcast to approximately 3,500 affiliates, and satellite transmissions reach countries where free speech is banned or where civil society is under threat.4

VOA uses digital, web, and mobile media as well, which, while sometimes useful in propagating valuable information globally, has created specific violations of the agency’s prohibition against broadcasting to the domestic U.S. audience—particularly with regard to flagrantly political content, as has been the practice with recent and current VOA content directors and managers.5 The network once had a generally well-received brand value, but it has deteriorated under decades of poor leadership and a loss of its once-prized unbiased reporting. There are bright spots within VOA, but mismanagement and declining production values have diluted its once- great reputation as a singular voice in American news broadcasting abroad.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting oversees Radio and Television Martí, a multimedia hub of news, information, and analysis that provides the people of Cuba with programs through satellite television, radio, and digital media. These programs present news and information about Cuba’s oppressive government from the outside world that would otherwise be heavily restricted.6 The OCB remains a critical avenue of truth to the Cuban people but has been threatened with crippling budget and operational constraints, including empathetic attitudes toward Communist Cuban leadership coupled with organizational hostility toward the OCB by certain elements of USAGM leadership. During the Biden Administration, the OCB has been threatened with closure, while also suffering chilling reductions in force.7 The Middle East Broadcasting Network is an Arabic-language news organization with a weekly audience of 27.4 million people in 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The MBN consists of two television networks, radio, websites, and social media platforms. Together, they deliver news and analysis on the region, American policies, and Americana. The MBN has correspondents throughout the Middle East and North Africa.8 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a private, nonprofit, multimedia broadcasting corporation that serves as a surrogate media source in 27 languages and 23 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Ukraine.

Founded in the early days of the Cold War (Radio Free Europe in 1949 and Radio Liberty in 1953) and merged in 1976, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were intended to execute edgy and daring information operations and unrestricted news reporting deep behind the Iron Curtain. Unfortunately, like other broadcast organizations under USAGM, RFE/RL has surrendered much of its rich history to an approach that favors political trends as opposed to operations that support and represent America abroad. While there are some bright spots within RFE/RL, much of the network has redundant programming with certain VOA language services, often with competing, counterproductive, or dissimilar messaging. The recent addition of RFE/RL’s Hungarian-language service, Szabad Európa, falls outside the intended scope of RFE/RL’s charter by targeting a democratically elected, pro-American European and NATO ally. Not least, RFE/RL has been plagued by several serious espionage-related security risks within its ranks.9

Several reports from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) were released showing waste and self-dealing, including security vulnerabilities and RFA lead- ership awarding insiders millions of dollars of grant funding.11 For example, as the OIG stated in one report, the then-president of RFA “established the Free- dom2Connect Foundation (Foundation)” and thereafter “awarded two contracts, totaling $1.2 million” to the foundation she herself founded.12

Furthermore: [The] OIG found that RFA did not comply with Federal procurement requirements for grantees. OIG identified instances in which RFA and its agents did not comply with OMB [Office of Management and Budget] conflict-of-interest procurement requirements for grantees. Specifically, OIG found that RFA entered into 14 contracts, totaling $4.0 million (51 percent of the amount of OTF FYs 2012 and 2013 project-related contracts), with organizations that had some affiliation with either RFA officials or members of OTF Advisory Council.13

Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit multimedia news corporation that brings news and uncensored content to people in six Asian countries that restrict free speech, freedom of the press, and access to reliable information. RFA also provides educational and cultural programming, as well as forums for audiences to engage in open dialogue and freely express opinions. RFA utilizes on-the-ground reporters and networks of in-country sources, citizen journalists, and eyewitnesses who provide leads, tips, images, and video.10 This same leadership proceeded to wastefully form the Open Technology Fund as its own independent grantee with the help of USAGM senior management prior to the tenure of Trump-appointed leadership.

The Open Technology Fund’s goal is to provide funding to support the research, development, and implementation of Internet freedom technologies that circumvent censorship. OTF was formed under dubious circumstances by using consolidation rules to usurp the mission and funding of USAGM’s pre-existing Office of Internet Freedom (OIF), which funded far more diverse technologies with much greater transparency. OTF, however, operates with far less transparency and strictly restricts funding to “open source” technology. OTF does not support any technology with even partially “closed source” code, notwithstanding that such closed-source code would provide more protection against hacking.

Although OTF touts large user numbers, this could not be substantiated upon requests for information, and it was discovered by former senior USAGM leadership that OTF makes extremely small, insubstantial donations to much larger messaging applications and technology to bolster its unsubstantiated claims.14 Despite its vibrant self-lobbying and publicity efforts, OTF remains a wasteful and redundant boondoggle. Its grantee status was suspended by Trump-appointed USAGM leadership for a number of reasons, including noncompliance with its grant terms and for actions that resulted in several fraud and waste investigations.15

The OIF, which predates OTF, was historically under USAGM’s Office of Chief Strategy Officer and for years had been performing the same tasks as OTF within USAGM headquarters for the benefit of all USAGM broadcast networks. With much greater transparency, OIF succeeded with fewer staff while simultaneously fielding more diverse and robust technologies. Absent a meaningful organizational impact analysis to justify the wastefulness of the decision-making process, OTF usurped the entire OIF budget and was set up as a new grantee organization.

Exacerbating matters, OIF was shut down in order to provide massive grants to the opaque activities of OTF and its founding leadership, who went on a free-spending boondoggle for high-end Washington, D.C., office space, furnishings, and top salaries for its leadership team. Numerous career staff whistleblowers came forward to sound the alarm about OTF to Trump- appointed leadership, citing concerns about the OIG reports, wasteful spending, and other substantive performance matters.16 Nonetheless, the — 238 —Media Agencies: U.S. Agency for Global Media Biden Administration reinstated OTF to full operational status and ceased all investigations immediately after assuming office.

Late in the Trump Administration, following the long-delayed Senate confirma- tion of Michael Pack as USAGM Chief Executive Officer (CEO),17 agency leadership rapidly initiated long-overdue and necessary reforms,18 including security reforms repeatedly requested by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that had been ignored by USAGM leadership.19 Unfortunately, as was the case with the OTF, the Biden Administration immediately reinstated personnel who had been fired for gross security violations, placing the agency back into its previously failed posture—one that poses a danger to national security.