Two employees huddle in the Voice of America's radio control room in New York, Feb. 27, 1953, through which all voice broadcasts. (AP Photo/John Rooney, File)2025-01-17T14:48:12Z LONDON (AP) Its called the Voice of America a storied news outlet that has promised the truth since it first broadcast stories about democracy into Nazi Germany during World War II. Now, its the voice of a country in which a majority of voters chose incoming presidentDonald Trump, a man famous for insistingthe truth is what he says it is. What VOA will tell the world about the United States and democracy during a second Trump administration depends heavily on the once and future president. Trump has jolted foreign leaders with statements about somehow adding Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal to the United States. He wants to project America and himself as dominant. And fighting independent reporting that conflicts with this goal what he considers fake news is one of Trumps signatures.During the first Trump administration, his targets included Voice of America in an uglychapter that included firings, a lawsuit, whistleblowers and a federal investigation. Media experts and current and former VOA journalists see this history potentially repeating itself in a landscape of creepingautocracy, rampant misinformation and Russian propaganda.. I expect that VOA will be put under intense pressure to promote the USA. This seems likely to involve ... only selecting news that paints the country in a positive light, Kate Wright, associate professor of media and politics at the University of Edinburgh, wrote in an email. Trump, she predicted, will try to correct supposedly liberal bias at VOA. The risk is that this will push journalists to create false balance treating perspectives or statements as equally valid when they are not. This time, Trump knows where the levers of power lie. He is poised to test Voice of Americas statutory firewall that protects its editorial operations from interference by any government official. Trump and Kari Lake, his choice to lead the newsgathering organization, have been clear about their intent to reform the media in a series of statements that have rattled many of VOAs 2,000 employees and delighted Trumps fans. Lake said in an interview published Thursday that her job wont be to turn VOA into Trump TV. But its also not our job to go in there and unduly criticize President Trump, she told The Epoch Times. I just want to see fair coverage. I think thats what he wants. The identity of a renowned news outlet is at stakeAlready, Trumps nomination of Lake has resurrected a question that has shadowed Voice of America from its founding: Can a $260 million, government-funded news outlet ever really operate independently?The law sets it up that way. President Gerald Ford signed VOAs charter in 1976. Congress tightened its editorial protections in 1994 and did so again in 2020, after a federal judge ruled that a Trump appointee had infringed on the editorial independence and First Amendment rights of VOA journalists. That was the clear intent from the first words anyone ever heard from the outlet, when the voice of William Harlan Hale beamed a message into Nazi Germany in 1942. The news may be good. The news may be bad, Hale announced, in German. We shall tell you the truth. That approach carried the outlet through World War II. It survived Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who convened hearings in 1953 on allegations that VOA journalists were communist sympathizers. Unlike Soviet broadcasts, the Voice of America is not only committed to telling its countrys story, but also remains faithful to those standards of journalism that will not compromise the truth, President Ronald Reagan said at VOAs 40th anniversary celebration in 1982. Within a decade, Voice of America was broadcasting inside Russia 24-7 and had enough people to produce a fresh 10-minute newscast each hour. Some featured Russian writers who had been expelled but were willing to talk to their countrymen.If you were interested in hearing something different from propaganda, you would seek out these voices, said Mark Pomar, the head of the Russian Service for VOA in the 1980s and the author of Cold War Radio. Trump and Lake, a former Arizona broadcast journalist and a denier of multiple elections, have described a different approach. Under my leadership, Lake posted in December, the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling Americas achievements worldwide. VOAs actual mission is representing America, not propagandaLakes mission statement is a far cry from what VOAs charter says but Trump has made his name upending tradition, undermining institutions and seeking to unravel the so-called deep state. He views the Voice of America as disgraceful. And hes tried to control the flow of information through VOAs global audience of 350 million before. Its not fake news for you to broadcast that this is the greatest nation the world has ever known, Trumps then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during an interview at VOA in 2021.Under the charter signed into law by Ford, the Voice of America will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. It will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.It goes on: VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.And finally, the broadcaster will present the policies of the US clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies. So by law, Voice of America must broadcast editorials. They are clearly marked as such and labeled as U.S. policy, but typically are pretty bland, diplomatic videos. There, Wright and others say, lie some potential opportunities for Trump. Leading VOA from the news side of the firewall, Lake could have wide latitude to appear on-air herself, for example, or to steer coverage to topics the administration favors. The laws intended to protect VOAs editorial independence, Wright said, are hard to enforce. Together, those are some of the factors that could open the door to whats known as government capture of an independent agency, in which a government controls what is broadcast to domestic audiences. VOA is legally set up to broadcast news to international audiences, but in reality, anyone can access it. That leaves VOA open to transforming into a news-like organization that operates more like the Voice of Trump and speaks to his American constituency.These provisions always risked opening the door to any administration which wanted to turn the network into a mouthpiece, said Wright, the co-author of the 2024 book Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America.The newly named VOA chief called media reform her pet projectLake was a broadcast journalist in Arizona for decades, winning two Emmys for her teams coverage of landmine recovery in Cambodia, a Fox News spokeswoman said. Then Lake quit and ran for governor. Shes falsely denied two election losses Trumps loss to Joe Biden in 2020 and her own for governor in 2022. Last year, she ran for Senate in Arizona and lost. Throughout, Lake built a national profile as an unflinching Trump ally with a relentless focus on unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and tough talk about securing the U.S.-Mexico border with force. Her showy on-camera clashes with mainstream reporters monsters, she said got plaudits online and apparently Trumps attention as well.At a Trump rally just days before the election last year, Lake, then still a Senate candidate, declared the subject of her pet project.Reforming the fake news into some real honest press, she told a cheering crowd. The days of the fake news are numbered. Were going to get some real journalists once again. Current and former VOA journalists who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation said there was a sense of resignation that under Trump, Lake could clean house. Many are thought to be looking for other jobs.Spokespersons for Lake and for Trumps transition did not reply to queries about her plans for VOA, including whether Lake intends to appear on-air at VOA herself. Trump must first appoint a CEO of the outlets parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media. That person would be subject to Senate confirmation.Lake told Breitbart in an interview last month that she wants to return Voice of America to its glory days, of when we could bring down communism (and) change hearts and minds across the globe without having to fire a single bullet. That phrasing is often used to describe Reagans triumph over the Soviet Union and the fall of communism. Heres what he had to say about truth in 1982 to the Voice of America and its role during the Cold War. I know theres a great deal of discussion about the truth, as if there are degrees to truth. Well, no, truth can be told, he said, adding later: It remains the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of democracy.___David Bauder covers media for The Associated Press and reported from New York. Laurie Kellman has reported for the AP from Washington, Israel and London for 27 years. Follow her at http://www.x.com/APLaurieKellman LAURIE KELLMAN Kellman has covered U.S. politics and foreign affairs for the Associated Press, including 23 years reporting from Washington and three from Jerusalem. She is based in London. twitter facebook mailto DAVID BAUDER Bauder is the APs national media writer, covering the intersection of news, politics and entertainment. He is based in New York. twitter mailto