Several GOP Senators demanded that the Biden administration fire Voice of America (VOA) employees over an internal policy that prohibits the U.S. government-funded outlet from using the word “terrorist” to describe Hamas members and to hold the news service accountable for enforcing a “double standard” in its coverage of the terrorist group, National Review has exclusively learned.
The group wrote to U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) CEO Amanda Bennett this morning, demanding that she dismiss staffers involved in an email chain where the Hamas policy was discussed internally, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NR.
Last month, National Review reported on the existence of the policy, which instructed VOA staffers to “avoid calling Hamas and its members terrorists, except in quotes,” though they may still refer to Hamas’s October 7 attack as “terrorist attacks” or “acts of terror” and note that the U.S. government has designated the group a foreign terrorist organization. VOA subsequently edited at least one of its reports on the attack by an Israeli freelancer to cut her use of the word “terrorists,” replacing it with “militants.”
Senator Bill Hagerty led the letter, with Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Pete Ricketts, Lindsey Graham, Deb Fischer, and John Barrasso signing onto it. The senators are all members of the chamber’s committees on foreign relations or appropriations, which conduct oversight over USAGM or vote on funding for it.
VOA did not immediately comment on the letter, though a spokesperson for the news service said that it plans to respond to NR’s emailed query about it. USAGM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bennett’s agency oversees Voice of America, which, despite its U.S. funding, remains editorially independent and retains a “firewall” policy that prohibits interventions in editorial decisions by government officials.
But the senators wrote that the policy likely violates the outlet’s mandate to produce “accurate, objective, and comprehensive news,” the formulation used its charter.
They accused VOA of failing to treat Hamas as it has treated other terrorist groups, which it has labeled as such. “VOA already has established a history of using the term ‘terrorist’ in reporting to describe U.S.-designated FTOs like the Islamic State and Al-Qaida,” they wrote in the letter. “For example, VOA maintains the Extremist Watch Desk (EWD), launched in 2015, that was initially focused on the ‘Islamic State, Al-Qaida and other terror and extremist groups’ and was ‘expanded to cover other designated terrorist and extremist groups around the world,” the letter continued. The senators also noted an article from earlier this year in which VOA called the Islamic State a “terrorist group,” outside of quotes and without referring to a specific policy designation.
“VOA has created an editorial double standard in which it appears to accept the designation of the Islamic State, Al-Qaida, and other officially designated terrorist groups as terrorists, but not Iran-backed Hamas, which explicitly seeks to destroy Israel and kill Jews,” they added.
The senators demanded that Bennett hold VOA accountable for this double standard, including by terminating the employment of VOA news standards associate editor Carol Guensburg and White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara. Guensburg had communicated the policy in an email to VOA staffers last month, to which Widakuswara responded by urging her colleagues to note in their stories that “the militant group’s attack was done in retaliation for Israel’s decades-long occupation.” The VOA employees did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Representative Darrell Issa separately began to investigate VOA’s Hamas policy last week, sending a letter to the outlet requesting that they produce the emails where it was communicated to the outlet’s staff.
GOP Senators Demand Firings over Voice of America’s Policy against Labeling Hamas Members ‘Terrorists’
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07.11.2023
Several GOP Senators demanded that the Biden administration fire Voice of America (VOA) employees over an internal policy that prohibits the U.S. government-funded outlet from using the word “terrorist” to describe Hamas members and to hold the news service accountable for enforcing a “double standard” in its coverage of the terrorist group, National Review has exclusively learned.
The group wrote to U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) CEO Amanda Bennett this morning, demanding that she dismiss staffers involved in an email chain where the Hamas policy was discussed internally, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NR.
Last month, National Review reported on the existence of the policy, which instructed VOA staffers to “avoid calling Hamas and its members terrorists, except in quotes,” though they may still refer to Hamas’s October 7 attack as “terrorist attacks” or “acts of terror” and note that the U.S. government has designated the........
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