Trump Appointee Seeks Lasting Control Over Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, Joe.My.God.

MEDIA

Trump Appointee Seeks Lasting Control Over Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia

December 30, 2020 11:01 PM ET

David Folkenflik | https://www.twitter.com/davidfolkenflik

Michael Pack's stormy tenure over the federal agency that oversees government-funded broadcasters abroad — including Voice of America — appears to be coming to a close. Yet President Trump's appointee has sparked an internal outcry by taking bold steps to try to cement his control over at least two of the networks and shape the course of their journalism well into the Biden administration.

Pack, the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, also serves as chairman of the boards of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. Pack and the members of the boards have now added binding contractual agreements intended to ensure that they cannot be removed for the next two years. They could be removed only "for cause" subsequently. Pack stocked those boards with conservative activists and Trump administration officials, despite a tradition of bipartisanship. ... In other words, although President-elect Joe Biden has already signaled he intends to replace Pack as CEO of the parent agency soon after taking office in January, Pack would maintain a significant degree of control over the networks. Pack and USAGM declined requests for comment.

NPR has reviewed the language of the contracts, which have yet to be signed by the new presidents of the two networks — both of whom were appointed by Pack this month. The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty contract was slated to be approved on Wednesday but appears to have been withdrawn from consideration after internal objections and inquiries from congressional aides, NPR and other media. It is unclear what the future holds for the initiative from Pack.

A group of more than two dozen senior officials from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, including Editor-in-Chief Daisy Sindelar, wrote Pack in sharp protest on Wednesday. The group said in a statement obtained by NPR that Pack's actions "will compromise the freedom from political influence that for seven decades has characterized Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) as an independent surrogate news organization for countries with no free press of their own." (News of the statement was first reported by CNBC.)

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Top Officials' Protest Letter

{snip}

[Iliyah]

1. Nope . ...

get the liar out.

[LiberalLovinLug]

2. "...despite a tradition of bipartisanship"

Any requirement not written down in stone, as a legal requirement, and only steered by such words as "tradition" will never be respected ever again by the GOP. It started with holding up Obama's judicial nominees, including the SCOTUS.

Its kind of sad the ending to a more gentle respectful age. But Democrats must realize that that part of American history is over. I am very worried about Biden's insistence in living in the past. That even though it was made abundantley clear during Obama's term, Biden is still forging on with the Obama-like strategy of showing your cards early and praying they will join hands with them and sing kumbaya together on the shining hill.

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. Biden's willingness to signal that he wants to return to a time when Congress worked for the...

American people is the reason he won, resoundingly, against all his opponents, both in the primary and the GE. Anyone who insists that Biden act like the GOP doesn't have our party, nor the good of the country at heart. Why does it irritate/threaten certain people so much to think of a bipartisan Congress working together for our good?

[LiberalLovinLug]

6. The ones threatened by "a bipartisan Congress working together" are not Democrats

I'm sure we'd all like that. Its Republicans, especially the Trump humpers.

I said above, that it is sad, that Republicans have abandoned that way.

But they have. Get used to it. And no amount of wishing it back will make it happen, no matter how much Biden wants it to be reality.

And no, we don't act like the GOP in all their illegal and anti-democratic and corrupt ways. But we understand that they declared all out war over 10 years ago, and it still hasn't dawned on some that there is a war going on. So those people sit on their hands, and tsk tsk anyone that dares to be proactive and fight back and stand up. Don't want to come off as rude, or ungrateful, or ungentlemanly.

These people live in a fantasy as much as Trumpers do in their own bubbles. My gawd didn't the eight years watching Obama get demeaned and ignored make it sink in? Biden got elected mainly because he was seen as the best person to beat Trump. Period. It had nothing to do with bipartisanship. Most Democratic voters were smart enough to understand that.

Maybe you are the exception to the rule, but most Democrats I know do not expect Republicans to run back to the middle and shake Biden's hand any time soon. And the sooner the new administration realizes it is only wasting time with that the better.

Of course it all depends on Georgia. If Rs keep the Senate, then Democrats will have to try and play nice. Begging for scraps. I just pray that we can win those two seats, and then....fuck bipartisanship. We have a lot to do just to reverse Trumps damage, let alone push through our own new policies.

[pfitz59]

3. March him out on a rail...

Let him try to justify this illegal power-grab.