The U.S. government-funded Voice of America (VOA) will stop doing business with a number of leading global news outlets, including the Associated Press (AP), Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reuters.
The affirmation came from Kari Lake, a former television news anchor who now serves as a special advisor to President Donald Trump while she awaits Congressional approval to be appointed as VOA’s Director General. Trump announced his intention to nominate Lake to the post late last year.
In a post on social media late Thursday afternoon, Lake affirmed her decision to trim VOA’s contracts with the news organizations, saying the agency should “not be paying outside news companies to tell us what the news is.”
“I moved today to cancel expensive and unnecessary newswire contracts for US Agency for Global Media, including tens of millions of dollars in contracts with The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse,” Lake wrote. “We should be producing news ourselves — and, if that’s not possible, the American taxpayer should know why.”
Lake does not have direct control over the VOA, but she carries influence as a special advisor within the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the independent organization that operates VOA and other broadcasters like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Al Hurra.
The VOA serves as an external broadcaster, carrying news and special interest programs in multiple languages, with its channels targeted at countries where independent journalism is difficult to access.
For much of its existence, the VOA has operated as a self-governing news organization, free from government influence. But that is likely to change during Trump’s second term as President, with his nominations to run the USAGM and its outlets strongly indicating their willingness to skew certain editorial coverage in a light most favorable to the Trump administration.
The move is the latest to target global news operations that have distribution contracts with some federal agencies. In February, the Trump administration directed the General Services Administration to dissolve “every single media contract.”
The order impacted a number of commercial operations, including Bloomberg, Politico, Reuters, Dow Jones and the New York Times. The AP is recognized by the Internal Revenue Services as a not-for-profit organization, but has commercial contracts with some government agencies that are valued at nearly $2 million.
