BBC’s Phony “Us Vs. Them” Game

USAID is not a saintly organization, and Voice of America is and always has been a propaganda network

The BBC recently aired an episode of its Global Jigsaw podcast on the supposed “Trump effect on media.” Yes, of course, it’s obvious that Donald Trump is no fan of critical journalism or of public institutions. Nevertheless, the BBC presented the situation of Trump trying to axe the Voice of America and Radio Liberty as a disaster that “could have long-lasting implications for audiences around the world.” One interview subject declared, “By closing down Radio Liberty, you’re kind of giving a victory on a platter to the opponents of free media.”

We were told in almost comically hyperbolic terms that “carnage” was “inflicted on independent media.”

Oh, please. I call bullshit.

I’m querying agents and publishers over a new book I’m writing about how journalism really works — and how far too often it doesn’t. So, I’m naturally interested in a podcast dealing with the VOA controversy, but the very way the BBC frames the issue is rigged. It presents Voice of America and Radio Liberty as standing on the side of “independent” media and alternative views. Are you kidding us?

The fact that Trump can end these services already confirms that you are dealing with a state-run entity. They’re federally funded. Please explain to us then how they are “independent?” Yes, you may argue that VOA’s editorial control has often been historically at arm’s length from its oversight body, which for those who don’t know, is the U.S. Agency for Global Media. But it has never been “independent” nor “impartial.”

In 2021, in an article that bordered on the delusional about Ethiopia’s war with a terrorist group, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Nick Turse claimed in The Intercept that the Voice of America “has been a trusted news source for millions around the world for almost eighty years…”

When I read this line, I burst out laughing. A colleague at Canadian Press who was once a VOA correspondent for Rome told me point blank in the 1980s that the service was a propaganda machine. That was its function. And he knew this as he worked for the VOA for decades.

History backs him up. After all, Voice of America was created in the 1940s to counter Nazi propaganda. The BBC itself used to relay messages to the French Underground during the German Occupation. You can argue that although the BBC was a public institution that supposedly presented “objective” news, it was in its own interests in an imperiled Britain to help the French Resistance. But again, that doesn’t make it independent. And Radio Liberty, founded in 1949, was created with the express purpose to counter Soviet Russian influence.

For crying out loud, declassified government documents prove that both Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty got funding from the CIA.

This is the bait-and-switch game the BBC is playing on its podcast episode: in order to justify the messaging of these Western brands, the discussion can’t debate the messages themselves. Instead, listeners are told that they’re “independent” and “alternative,” and that without them, peoples in oppressed nations are at the mercy of state media.

But this argument has all the strength of mosquito netting hit by a Ford truck. If we go back to Nick Turse’s rather silly article of 2021, you’d think Ethiopians sat by their computers, anxiously listening to VOA’s Amharic Service or were checking the VOA website for the truth of what was going on in the war. Nonsense. Ethiopians mainly relied on their own social media sources and Ethiopian diaspora media. I know this because I was there. I covered the war in two separate trips and for two different Ethiopian news networks. Ethiopians could reliably get information — far faster, far more accurately and dependably — than VOA could deliver by the time it got around to it.

So, the notion that VOA or even these other services like Radio Liberty are somehow the “only” sources at times or that they are indisputably the best news sources available is absurd.

“Radio is still king in Africa,” the host assures us, “as media watchers will tell you.” Really? Which media watchers? Because I’d love to know how they came to that conclusion for more than 50 countries. Global Jigsaw presents USAID as a heroic funder of investigative and responsible journalism “across Africa,” and offers only one “expert,” Moses Rono, for an entire continent.

Well, I can tell you that in Ethiopia, USAID is despised. Ethiopians easily recall how USAID “cooked the books” and ignored the analysis from local experts and officials to peddle the notion that Tigray was on the brink of famine. (It wasn’t; in fact, it never was, as a former director with the World Food Programme made clear in a short memoir, recounting the falsehoods peddled by Western officials).

In 2021, sources told me how a USAID official was trying to pick the brains of certain individuals, asking what kind of drones did the Ethiopian government have? Where might the government have bought them? Months after that, he was asking analysts about the government’s air strikes on TPLF bases and industrial sites in and around Mekelle.

Why, we might reasonably wonder, was a guy with America’s international development agency asking around about drones and air strikes? This is the USAID that its defenders don’t want you to know. The creepy USAID acting as an intelligence wing of the U.S. government.

Yet the BBC presents it as a savior for “independent” journalism.

Stranger still is how the BBC quotes the mouthpieces of different regimes that are celebrating the imminent demise of VOA and company. As if their schadenfreude gives de facto validation to what VOA and Radio Liberty do. That’s not what’s going on.

The victory dance is not over a defeat of values but a defeat of brands.

Of course, these regimes celebrate publicly because they can’t directly reach let alone hurt these networks. They’re headquartered in Washington and Prague. All that’s left is public gloating. Because any victory over truly independent media, the news gathering and expression of activists in the regime country itself, is done with arrests in the middle of the night, with those voices consigned to anonymity and oblivion in dark cells.

Which is exactly what has been happening to journalists, artists, and Amhara activists in Ethiopia lately. Almost every day, Ethiopians learn through X or Facebook of how another much beloved professor or doctor has been arrested under the Abiy Ahmed regime.

The utter stupidity of the assumptions behind this podcast are clear for any free-thinking Ethiopian. And I’m sure if the BBC or VOA bothered to properly listen, Ethiopians would tell you:

No, you idiots, we don’t need you to interpret our news back to us — we need you to properly tell the rest of the world what is going on!

Only they don’t. And so no one comes to ask the proper questions and few come to help. The stories of persecuted brown people aren’t considered as sexy as those of Ukrainians getting bombed into near extinction by Russians day after day — the Ukrainians, remember, are white.

As we all know, Western mainstream networks only began telling part of the story of Palestinians because they were shamed into it by genuinely independent media and media watchdogs.

Nor does the BBC see any irony in depicting the imminent loss of VOA and Radio Liberty as a tragedy while the U.S., Canada, and EU bans RT. We’re told that RT, Iran’s Press TV, and Chinese outlets will “rush to fill a vacuum.”

Let me be clear: I am no fan of RT. I stopped checking it out well before it was banned on cable in my home of Canada as it was clear what it was and what it was trying to do. But let’s consider the analysis offered by Global Jigsaw. The host asks a commentator in the show’s last 10 minutes, “But how does a theocratic regime like Iran make its message appealing to audiences around the world?”

Contrary to what we’re told as children, yes, Virginia, there are stupid questions. And this is one of them.

Anyone who has even a superficial understanding of the political dynamics of Iran knows that it’s not interested in “exporting Islam” per se — Saudi Arabia has been doing much more of that with an extremist brand of Wahhabism. But Iran is naturally interested in being a regional power.

Her guest, Sarbas Nazari, replied, “It doesn’t necessarily mean that they will offer the Islamic teaching through their programs.”

And come to think of it, why is she asking this? The question implies that Islam is somehow a political threat.

But then Nazari goes on to say: “Depending on the taste of that target region, in some cases, they will lean towards leftism, for example, when it comes to Latin America. Because they understand that they have to spread the foothold [sic] in those regions, so openly discussing religious matters would not work. It’s more about the political ideology and the wider interests of the Islamic Republic for every single region in the world.”

Well, let’s unpack this for a moment. Because it has some truth up to a point, and then the logic breaks down. I noticed years ago that RT programs, for example, were clearly trying to lure in disaffected liberal and left-wing viewers — probably of a younger demographic — with stories that bashed away at America’s political hypocrisies and its messes in Iraq and Afghanistan. RT is not subtle, and it was no surprise then that RT would routinely lie over the war in Ukraine.

The ban, however, is a concession that it’s influential. Instead of fighting disinformation with balanced reportage, bad speech with informed, enlightening speech, you slam the door and cut the feed. And then you posture hypocritically how a “vacuum” will be created by the Trump administration cutting the feed on your own propaganda networks.

And while yes, I’ve already conceded there is an appeal to leftism by such networks, does anyone else notice Nazari has made a mild dig here at leftist politics in and of themselves?

So, in other words, lefties are the targets and are gullible folks?

For a show on VOA and Radio Liberty that can’t even remember their historical roots, it shouldn’t surprise us that Global Jigsaw misses another historical point by a mile:

The reason these other networks can resonate with listeners or viewers in terms of any left-of-center discussion is because these views aren’t being incorporated into or openly expressed by your supposedly “independent” BBC and VOA. Ever thought of that?

For example, if the BBC is one of those precious “independent,” “impartial,” and “alternative” sources for news in countries where journalism is an endangered species, why, we may ask, did Karishma Patel feel she had to leave the network over Gaza?

Her opinion piece in The Independent is well worth quoting: “To see such overwhelming evidence every day and then hear 50/50 debates on Israel’s conduct — this is what created the biggest rift between my commitment to truth and the role I had to play as a BBC journalist. We have passed the point at which Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity are debatable. There’s more than enough evidence — from Palestinians on the ground, aid organizations; legal bodies — to come to coverage-shaping conclusions around what Israel has done.”

In fact, why wasn’t Ms. Patel one of the guests interviewed for this segment of Global Jigsaw?

It’s fascinating and even comical to hear the mild note of alarm on the program that Sputnik News might open a “media center” in Ethiopia and the idea that RT might have an “academy” where it would train journalists. We’re warned that “Africa” (again, one big sweeping generalization of a continent) has the Chinese coming in to try to influence media, and so is Turkey’s TRT.

But there is nothing new here. Generations of Africans were sent to Soviet universities in the 1960s and seventies, and they did not come back as wind-up toy soldiers. The father of a dear Ethiopian friend studied in Moscow. He lives in Washington, DC, and his son — my friend — is an accomplished doctor. It’s a family living the American dream. Paul Robeson, the amazing singer, actor and civil rights activist, was harassed by the FBI for simply going to the Soviet Union to perform in concerts.

Where, you ask in exasperation after a relentless set of clips suggesting the “implications are absolutely grave,” is any respect for intelligent people to choose for themselves? To make up their own minds? The implication to me is that these journalists and media watchers think of all the viewers and listeners as naïve children who can be easily conned. The infantilization is especially insulting towards Africans and Asians. But those who want to know the news, who want to get a full understanding of political events, are not dumb people.

When I left journalism school and got my first jobs, I was given this sage wisdom that newspaper copy should be written at about a seven-year-old’s reading level. I found this asinine. I pointed out to these sages that those with a seven-year-old’s reading level don’t read the newspaper.

Nor is there any respect among the BBC’s chosen experts for indigenous media. Myanmar has one of the most repressive regimes in the world, but for years, it’s had The Irrawaddy, a news outlet run by exiled journalists in Bangkok. In other words, Burmese deciding on Burmese news, not outsiders coming along and telling Burmese what’s happening to them.

And do these advocates for VOA honestly think their broadcasts have reflected the reality of what has been going on in Gaza?

Why then is the discussion focused on these news networks with an American (or British) perspective as if they are the only reliable go-to news sources?

“In the short-term,” one expert declares in a voice that is numbingly monotone, “we’re likely to see a decrease in political reporting on the governments and also, possibly more disinformation.” It’s an incredibly narrow viewpoint that implies the only “good” journalism comes through the mechanisms of American and British sponsorship.

And funny how the program skips over a day-to-day reality of broadcasting, which is as true of VOA and Radio Liberty as any other shop, whether it be CBS or its local affiliate out in Oklahoma. Editors decide what goes on air. And for the BBC, that’s decided in London. For VOA, that’s decided in Washington. So, an editor in Washington is ultimately deciding how Uzbekistan and Somalia get interpreted on their airwaves. Yes, there may be an Uzbek or Somali who helps decide the lineup, but the broader agenda of coverage is not decided there — it’s in DC.

See the problem?

Big brand media constantly seeks to validate itself. It does this with journalism awards the general public doesn’t give a damn about, but which give staff bragging rights. It does this by claiming it’s “the only operation” on the scene of a war/fire/quake, as if anyone cares. And it does this by circling the wagons: if VOA, a federally funded network, can be axed, what might happen to the BBC? A podcast that amounts to a commercial for the VOA is in reality a commercial for itself.

I know what it’s like to be on the inside and on the outside of these brands. I worked for Canadian Press in Toronto and briefly for an American news network in London. I taught journalism for a Burmese newspaper and did reporting for two Ethiopian news channels. The correspondent for one of Canada’s most established papers called me a “notorious propagandist” on Twitter, refusing to do any responsible, balanced reportage on an African war. And he’s still not doing it. But according to corporate media, this guy is legit.

So, I promise you that the solution to the disinformation spread by Putin’s Russia or by Xi Jinping’s China is not to bet on big legacy American media. It’s a false choice, a phony game. It’s implied that if we reject what VOA is selling, oh, then we must be buying what RT and China’s CCTV have to offer!

There’s a third choice: a “non-alignment movement” of journalism, so to speak. Financially support and rely on multiple and diverse journalistic voices both within countries and in diaspora communities around the world.

Because again, people don’t need America to tell them what’s going on inside their own countries — they have their own dissidents, activists, and journalists in exile for that. You can claim that VOA can amplify them, but the last thing these local journalists need is an American editor weighing their worth.

What they need is for American media to respect these voices and stop trying to coopt them. A red-white-and-blue flag makes a lousy filter.