Voice of America

Two bills approved by Congress awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature would limit the powers of Michael Pack, the president’s pick to lead the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America and four other international media organizations. The legislation includes changes limiting the powers of the USAGM and its chief executive, but in different ways. The two bills taken together could restrict Pack’s actions between now and January 20, when Democratic President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

One of the big differences between publicly-funded independent media, like the Voice of America, and state-controlled media is that we are free to show all sides of an issue and are actually mandated to do so by law as stated in the VOA Charter signed by President Gerald Ford in 1976. We are thoroughly covering China's dis-information and misinformation in English and Mandarin and at the same time reporting factually – as we always do in all 47 of our broadcast languages - on other events in China.

A few years ago, Tuttle (OK) suddenly found itself without cable or internet service after a local broadband provider went bankrupt, leaving behind unpaid bills to the power company. Like the majority of cities in the US, Tuttle residents accessed broadband through private companies rather than through a city-run system. With the town of a few thousand growing quickly and attracting professionals from nearby Oklahoma City who were used to high-speed internet, Tuttle city officials began meeting with new private telecommunications companies to fill the gap.

Even in the country that invented the internet, access has remained painfully slow for many rural residents in places like the central state of Arkansas, far from the big cities of the East and West coasts. That may be about to change. The Federal Communications Commission recently auctioned off almost $1.5 billion in subsidies to get broadband providers to serve an additional 700,000 American homes over the next 10 years. Additional such auctions are planned.