ALAS, KISS OFF VOICE OF AMERICA

WE  COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING: David Folkenflik reports in NPR, May 7, 2025, “Kari Lake Says OAN‘s Far-Right Coverage Will Fuel Voice of America.” What’s worse, see below for a late-breaking example of this OAN corruption of reality.

We feared for the worst when Lake put VoA staff on indefinite leave back in March. Then, like so many others of Trump’s authoritarian schemes, matters got tangled in the courts: It was Congress after all, not the Executive Branch, that funded VoA back in 1942 to counter Nazi propoganda.

“Its charge,” David Folkenflik writes, “is to incorporate criticism of the government’s official line to convey the news in its complexity but also to model what a pluralistic democracy looks like.”

One America’s News’ Creds. Folkenflik recounts, “OAN has distinguished itself by its resolute support of President Trump—even as he insisted falsely that he had been cheated of re-election in 2020.”

“OAN reached settlements,” Folkenflit observes, “to resolve separate defamation lawsuits filed by the voting software company Smartmatic, a former executive at Dominion Voting Systems, and two Georgia election workers over disproven claims that they had helped rig the 2020 presidential elections for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.”

You may recall Fox News had to fork over $787.5 million for similar journalistic falsehoods.

As an example, Wikipedia‘s account of OAN is hardly more flattering: “The OAN channel originally debuted [in 2013] in partnership with The Washington Times, a conservative daily newspaper founded by the Unification Church from South Korea. The company said in 2019 OAN was available in 35 million homes and that its audience ranged from 150,000 to as large as 500,000, though that year Nielsen Media Research estimated its viewership to be about 14,000. By July 2022, the network was available only to a few hundred thousand people who subscribed to smaller cable providers.”

By then, the major cable providers had dropped OAN for one reason or another. 

A Matt Gaetz Landing Place. “In December 2024,” Wikipedia continues, “following former Congressman Matt Gaetz‘s withdrawal from his nomination to United States Attorney General by Donald Trump due to allegations of sexual assault, it was announced that Gaetz would be joining OAN to host a new show every weekday starting in January 2025.”

Senior Trump advisor Kari Lake. Image by Jose Luis Magana for NPR.

Notes Folkenflik, “Lake is a former local TV news anchor in Phoenix turned two-time unsuccessful pro-Trump candidate for state-wide office in Arizona. Like OAN, she has promoted Trump’s lies about election fraud and has made groundless claims about her races as well.”

Gee, just what’s sought in a senior advisor. Kari Lake and Matt Gaetz: a journalistic linkup made in MAGAland. If Pete Hegseth doesn’t work out at the U.N., I’d suggest a communications trifecta!

A Mockery of History. Folkenflik quotes, ” ‘Kari Lake providing One America News Network to our global audiences makes a mockery of the agency’s history of independent non-partisan journalism,’ former U.S. Agency for Global Media Chief Financial Officer Grant Turner tells NPR.”

“Earlier this year,” Folkenflik notes, “the White House canceled Voice of America‘s contracts with major news services, including The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse, outlets that the broadcaster used to supplement its reporting.” 

Audiences Will Sense Truth. Folkenflik quotes Turner (who served as the agency’s acting CEO under Trump from October 2019 to June 2020): “I don’t think this complies with our statutory mandate and I don’t think audiences will take to it. The truth has a certain feel and audiences can sense that.”

Gee, I wonder if UPPER CASE blather translates across the airwaves?

An Example: Garcia’s Tatts. Juliet Macur reports, “Trump Has Made Claims About Abrego Garcia’s Tattoos. Here’s a Closer Look,” The New York Times, May 8, 2025. 

A screengrab of a post on Truth Social, where Trump shows an altered photograph of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s hand. Image via Truth Social and The New York Times.

“On other photos, however,” Macur observes, “including ones shared by Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the letters and numbers [MS-13] do not appear on Mr. Abrego Garcia’s knuckles.” 

Image by Jennifer Vasquez via The New York Times. 

I wonder how OAN/VoA will handle Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s knuckles? Who’s telling the truth? And who’s lying? 

January 6, 2021. “A normal tourist visit”?? Image by AP/Jose Luis Magana via hmtsu.edu.

And, recently, what about “‘Woke’ Publicly-Funded Statue in Times Square Featuring 12-Foot-Tall Overweight Black Woman Prompts Instant Mockery,” OAN, May 8, 2025? By the way, what are “pants with braided hair”?

Here’s the CBS News item of the same statue.

The “New” Voice of America. The following is taken directly from the recently posted (though dated March 14, 2025) VoA: 

The headline: “Trump Vows Accountability For Those Who Pursued Him In Court Cases.”

Evidently an OAN spin on Trump’s term “retribution.”

A typical paragraph: “During his years out of office, the department twice indicted Trump on charges that he illegally stored classified documents at his Florida estate and that he worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Both cases were dismissed after Trump won election in November, with the department citing a long-standing policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.”

What?? Nor, of course, is any mention made of his 34 felony convictions that still stand.  

Which perspective of history would you like the world to see? Sorry, world. VoA was renowned for truth and objectivity for 84 years. Alas, I wouldn’t count on this anymore. ds 

 © Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025