The White House excoriated Voice of America on Friday for betraying its roots — started in 1942 to “combat Nazi propaganda” — by comparing U.S. coronavirus with statistics supplied by China.
“Secrecy from the Communist Party of China allowed the deadly virus to spread across the world,” the administration’s “1600 Daily” newsletter said Friday. “Journalists should report the facts, but VOA has instead amplified Beijing’s propaganda. This week, VOA called China’s Wuhan lockdown a successful ’model’ copied by much of the world — and then tweeted out video of the Communist government’s celebratory light show marking the quarantine’s alleged end.”
The newsletter then pivoted to the use of China’s often-dubious, state-supplied statistics.
“Even worse, while much of the U.S. media takes its lead from China, VOA went one step further: It created graphics with Communist government statistics to compare China’s Coronavirus death toll to America’s,” the White House wrote. “As intelligence experts point out, there is simply no way to verify the accuracy of China’s numbers.”
VOA forcefully rejected the piece, along with claims that it’s “promoting propaganda” with U.S. taxpayer dollars.
“Unlike China, VOA has stuck to verifiable facts, including publishing numerous articles in Mandarin, English and other languages that outed China’s initial secrecy keeping information of the initial outbreak from the world,” VOA Director Amanda Bennett wrote on the outlet’s website. “VOA has thoroughly debunked much of the information coming from the Chinese government and government-controlled media.”
Ms. Bennett noted that VOA is “mandated” by law to “show all sides of an issue.”
A White House official, for all intents and purposes, accused VOA of obfuscating the real issue while speaking to Politico.
“They’re going to come back and talk about the times that they did call out Chinese propaganda,” the source said Friday. “But VOA is taxpayer funded and should never be promoting adversary messages. Sometimes calling out those adversaries doesn’t give you top cover to abandon the rest of your mission.”
▶️The Chinese city of Wuhan, original epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, ended its 76-day lockdown Wednesday morning.
— The Voice of America (@VOANews) April 9, 2020
After eleven weeks, Wuhan Honda car factories are reopening, Thursday, April 9 with new sanitation regulations and face masks for workers assembling cars. pic.twitter.com/kJN7dzxAIi
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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