Voice of America is off the air for now, having been gutted by President Donald Trump, but it may soon return — partly as a vessel for one of his favorite MAGA propaganda outlets.
One America News (OAN), the amateurish far-right TV outlet best known for promoting Trump’s 2020 election lies, is going to provide “newsfeed services” to VOA and other US-funded international broadcasters, according to Kari Lake, the MAGA loyalist Trump picked to run a hollowed-out VOA.
In a late-night X post, Lake said the idea originated from the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which beams Radio Martí into Cuba. OAN will provide “their newsfeed and video service free-of-charge,” she wrote, portraying it as a win for taxpayers.
Lake noted that she doesn’t currently have editorial control over VOA, so the immediate impact may be negligible.
But having access to OAN content is a big step toward turning the Voice of America into the Voice of Trump — an outcome that journalists at the network have feared.
VOA’s networks and websites are currently offline, but a handful of employees were called back to work on Tuesday. Staffers told CNN they sense that Lake wants to reboot the network as a shell of its former self. The goal, they believe, is to terminate most of the employee base but keep enough of the network intact to satisfy the federal judges who are scrutinizing the shutdown.
Repurposing OAN content would be in line with such a strategy.
Patsy Widakuswara and Jessica Jerreat, two of the sidelined journalists who are suing over Trump’s actions against VOA, told CNN in a statement, “Congress mandated VOA to report reliable and authoritative news, not to outsource its journalism to outlets aligned with the president’s agenda.”
“VOA already has talented and professional journalists ready to tell America’s story in line with the VOA Charter, but we are blocked from our own newsroom,” they said. “That is why we will continue fighting for our rights in court.”
OAN launched in 2013 and, during the first Trump presidency, quickly morphed into a conspiracy-boosting outlet with a far fringier voice than right-leaning outlets like Newsmax and Fox News. Former congressman Matt Gaetz, a MAGA devotee, currently hosts a primetime show on the network.
The little-watched cable channel was a leading proponent of Trump’s 2020 election lies and has settled multiple defamation lawsuits resulting from its on-air claims. Last year, OAN settled a lawsuit from voting technology company Smartmatic alleging the channel spread lies about the election to “increase viewership and revenue.” The network also settled a defamation suit from a Dominion Voting Systems executive, whose case revealed how OAN coordinated with Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and others to spread election lies.
OAN currently still faces a defamation lawsuit from Dominion. The network’s viewership and revenue have dwindled since DirecTV dropped it in 2022.
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