Judge bars moves to make news outlets Trump’s tools
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ruled against the head of the agency that runs Voice of America and other U.S.-funded news outlets after he was accused of trying to turn it into a propaganda vehicle to promote President Trump’s agenda.
The ruling effectively bars Michael Pack, chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, from making personnel decisions and interfering in editorial operations.
Pack, a conservative filmmaker, Trump ally and onetime associate of former White House senior advisor Stephen K. Bannon, made no secret of his intent to overhaul the agency after taking over in June.
He proceeded to purge the leadership at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and the Open Technology Fund, which provides internet access to people around the world. Voice of America’s director and deputy director resigned just days before the firings. Pack also dismissed their governing boards.
His moves were criticized by Democrats and Republicans in Congress who control the agency’s budget.
The lawsuit was filed last month in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by five executives who had been fired or suspended. They accused Pack and his senior advisors of violating the statutory firewall intended to protect the news organizations from political interference.
After the suit was filed, Pack announced he had rescinded the firewall rule issued by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. In a statement posted on his agency’s website, he said the rule wrongly prohibited him from directing broadcast operations and “made the agency difficult to manage.”
In her ruling late Friday, Judge Beryl A. Howell imposed preliminary injunctions that prevent Pack from making personnel decisions about the agency’s journalists, directly communicating with them or conducting any investigations into editorial content or individual journalists.
In July, Pack ordered an investigation into the posting of a video package featuring Joe Biden, now the president-elect, on a VOA website. He called the segment “pro-Biden” and said his staff was weighing disciplinary action against those responsible.
Fourteen senior VOA journalists wrote to management in August protesting Pack’s actions, including the dismissal of foreign journalists and his comments denigrating VOA staff, which they said were endangering their colleagues and the international broadcaster’s credibility.
“The court confirmed that the First Amendment forbids Mr. Pack and his team from attempting to take control of these journalistic outlets, from investigating their journalists for purported ‘bias,’ and from attempting to inf luence or control their reporting content,” Lee Crain, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
The agency did not respond to a written request for comment on the ruling.
VOA was founded during World War II. Its congressional charter requires it to present independent news and information to international audiences.