MSNBC: Donald Trump is killing the free press -- at home and abroad

[Dennis Donovan]

MSNBC - Donald Trump is killing the free press — at home and abroad

For those of us who’ve spent our careers defending truth in some of the world’s most repressive media environment, Kari Lake's recent announcement was a gut punch.

May 9, 2025, 11:52 AM EDT
By Muhammad Tahir

On May 6, Kari Lake, senior adviser at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), posted an announcement on X that might’ve been laughable — if it didn’t signal a five-alarm fire. She wrote: “USAGM is excited to announce a partnership with One America News Network (OAN) to provide newsfeed services to USAGM networks, including Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), Radio Martí, and Voice of America (VOA).”

Let’s be clear: OAN isn’t journalism—not the kind we studied, practiced or defended. It’s a MAGA mouthpiece that fueled election denial, peddled Covid conspiracies and settled with multiple plaintiffs who sued the network for defamation. And now, it’s being handed the keys to influence U.S.-funded media built to fight propaganda in authoritarian regimes. The irony is staggering.

For those of us who’ve spent our careers defending truth in some of the world’s most repressive media environments — I spent 18 years reporting from and broadcasting to authoritarian regimes across South and Central Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe through USAGM network, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) — Lake’s announcement wasn’t just an outrage. It was a gut punch.

Grant Turner, former CFO of USAGM, told NPR the move is “a mockery of the agency’s history of independent non-partisan journalism.”

But this isn’t just mockery — it’s a deliberate dismantling of USAGM’s networks. It breaks 83 years of congressionally backed laws, including the firewall meant to shield public-funded journalism from political meddling.

And it follows Lake’s pattern: resist, delay and hope they give up.

/snip