United States President-elect Donald Trump has named Kari Lake, a former television news anchor who mounted unsuccessful Senate and gubernatorial campaigns in Arizona, as his pick to run the state-funded global media organisation Voice of America (VOA).
Trump said on Wednesday that Lake, who has attracted criticism for espousing hardline views on immigration and denying the results of the 2020 presidential election, would work closely with the yet-to-be-announced next head of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
In her role, Lake will ensure “that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media”, Trump said in a statement on his platform Truth Social.
In a post expressing gratitude to Trump on X, Lake said VOA was a “vital international media outlet dedicated to advancing the interests of the United States by engaging directly with people across the globe and promoting democracy and truth”.
“Under my leadership, the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling America’s achievements worldwide,” Lake said.
During her bid for the Arizona governorship, Lake repeatedly echoed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
After narrowly losing the race, Lake refused to concede to her Democrat opponent Katie Hobbs and levelled unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
Yaqiu Wang, research director for China at the nonprofit Freedom House, described Trump’s choice of Lake as “deeply concerning”.
“Despite its flaws, VOA has been a vital source for human rights news in China, and for the global Chinese-language audience to understand the US and global politics. VOA is not CGTN precisely because it does real journalism,” Wang said on X, referring to China’s English-language broadcaster.
VOA, which is funded by the US Congress and carries news online, on radio and TV, operates in more than 40 languages and claims a weekly audience of more than 354 million people worldwide.
During Trump’s first term as president, reports that political appointees at the USAGM launched an investigation into the VOA’s then-White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman for alleged bias against the former president drew condemnation from media freedom organisations.
“These actions violate the First Amendment as well as a statutory firewall intended to make the US Agency for Global Media impervious to political interference in order to maintain ‘the highest standards of professional journalism,'” the Asian American Journalists Association said in a statement at the time.
In 2020, a bipartisan group of senators said they would review USAGM’s funding after then-CEO Michael Pack, a Trump-appointed conservative documentary filmmaker, fired or reassigned numerous senior staff and network heads.
Last year, a report by the independent Office of Special Counsel found that Pack had breached regulations meant to prevent political interference in editorial decision-making and abused his authority.
