Nick Schifrin:
Curtis said she considers the freeze and their funding illegal because the money is congressionally appropriated and RFE/RL’s mission is congressionally mandated. And they will sue the Trump administration to get it restored.
To discuss this, I turn to Michael Abramowitz, who since last year has been the president of Voice of America and before that was the president of Freedom House.
Michael Abramowitz, thanks very much. Welcome back to the “News Hour.”
As you heard, President Trump in his statement on Friday night referred to VOA as a radical propaganda with a liberal bias. Is it?
Michael Abramowitz, Director, Voice of America: I don’t think so.
I do think that people at many different news organizations have been accused of bias on both right and left, like many different news organizations. VOA is not perfect, but we’re unusual among news organizations because we are one of the few news organizations that by law has to be fair and balanced.
Every year, we look at each of our language services, review it for fairness, for balance. I have been a journalist in this field for a long time, and I think the journalists at VOA stand up very well against people from CNN, FOX, New York Times, et cetera, in terms of the commitment to balance.
When we do talk shows, for instance, broadcasting into Iran, we will have Republicans, we will have Democrats. We are presenting the full spectrum of American political opinion, which is required by our charter.
