Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America(Journalism and Political Communication Unbound)

The Voice of America (VOA) is the oldest and largest US government-funded international media organization. In 2020, Donald Trump nominated Michael Pack, a right-wing documentarian and close friend of Steve Bannon, to lead the US Agency for Global Media - the independent federal agency overseeing US-funded international media. During Pack's seven-month tenure, more than 30 whistleblowers filed complaints against him and a judge ruled that he had infringed journalists' constitutional right to freedom of speech. How did such a major international public service media network become intensely politicized by government allies in such a short time, despite having its editorial independence protected by law? Capturing News, Capturing Democracy puts these events in historical and international contextDLand develops a new analytical framework for understanding government capture and its connection to broader processes of democratic backsliding. Drawing from in-depth interviews with network managers and journalists, and analysis of private correspondence and internal documents, Kate Wright, Martin Scott, and Mel Bunce analyze how political appointees, White House officials, and right-wing media influenced VOADL changing its reporting of the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2020 presidential election. The authors stress that leaving the VOA unprotected leaves it and other public media open to targeting by authoritarian leadership and poses serious risks to US democracy. Further, they offer practical recommendations for how to protect the network and other international public service media better in the future.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: The Voice of America: A history of Conflict Chapter 3: Capturing Public Service Media around the World Chapter 4: Indirect Capture Chapter 5: Direct Editorial Interventions Chapter 6: The Post-Election Endgame Chapter 7: Resistance Strategies and Ongoing Harm Chapter 8: Conclusion

About the Author :
Kate Wright is an Associate Professor of Media and Communication, in the Politics and International Relations department at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She researches how different political economies and normative values shape the production of international news. She is the sole author of Who's Reporting Africa Now? Non-governmental Organizations, Journalists and Multimedia (2014) and co-authored Humanitarian Journalists (2022). She is also a former BBC journalist who worked on flagship news programs and investigative documentaries. Martin Scott is an Associate Professor of Media and Global Development, in the School of Global Development at the University of East Anglia in the UK. He has published research on media freedom, international journalism, foundation-funded news, media influence on aid, and news audiences. He authored Media and Development (2014), lead-authored Humanitarian Journalists (2022), and co-authored From Entertainment to Citizenship (2014). Mel Bunce is Professor of International Journalism and Politics, and Head of the Journalism Department at City, University of London, where she researches international news production, humanitarian journalism and media freedom. She is author of The Broken Estate: Journalism and Democracy in a Post-truth World (2019), co-author of Humanitarian Journalists (2022), and co-editor of Africa's Media Image in the 21st Century (2017).

Review :
A free and independent media is crucial to well-functioning societies worldwide. This book draws on a rich and comprehensive data set to analyse how Voice of America became dangerously politicized under the Trump administration -- and why VOA still remains vulnerable to government capture, while reminding us why avoiding that path is so crucial for democracies everywhere. Capturing the News unfolds like a riveting detective story, but is also theoretically sophisticated and historically contextualized, reaching out to comparisons across the globe. It offers hard-won lessons for what it will take to secure the journalistic autonomy of international public media - and for all media struggling to achieve their civic missions in an era of intensifying political and economic pressures. Policymakers take heed! Prescient and worrying, Wright, Scott and Bunce have created a timely study of the Trump-era management crisis at Voice of America. With the benefit of specially declassified documents the authors argue persuasively that the Trump years at VOA show that America's international public service media is just as vulnerable to state capture as media around the world under authoritarian rule. This book is a valuable addition to public diplomacy studies and to the literature of the twin crises in democracy and free media. It deserves to be read carefully by all who seek to sustain free media on the world's airwaves, but especially those on Capitol Hill. Wright, Scott, and Bunce have written an original and timely book that engages multiple fields, including journalism studies, political communication, comparative media research, international relations, and media sociology. Meticulously researched, brilliantly historicized, and provocatively argued, this important study offers cautionary tales and key lessons for preventing the capture of international public service media systems -- and thereby protecting their vital journalistic roles as well as the democratic ideals they serve. A fascinating book that offers a nuanced and critical view of the political firestorm that began to compromise the Voice of America's press freedom between 2020- and 2021. Especially useful is the historical framework the authors provide, which shows that both major political parties in the U.S. have tried to influence the network at different points in time. Even so, the book shows that the Trump administration posed a worrying set of threats to the VOA - threats that have not entirely disappeared in the current moment. The book is a vital read for communication scholars and media practitioners alike Provides a chilling case study of partisan stewardship and its impact... the authors have broken new ground in explaining how, even in a short time, a venerable agency with a tradition of honest reporting can be turned almost upside down. Highly recommended. The richly textured and narratively riveting Capturing News, Capturing Democracy...[is] vital, in offering an incisive theoretical, methodological, and structural toolkit by which to diagnose [public service media] infected by illiberalism, as well as the therapeutic interventions necessary for resistance and recovery.