In the past two days, the voice media “VOA” of the U.S. government was first criticized by Pompeo for “staring at the dark side of the United States all day”, and then an old employee of more than ten years was criticized for challenging Pompeo and transferred from his position as a White House reporter.
January 12, an NPR reporter tweeted that three journalists of the Voice revealed that their White House female journalist Patsy Widakuswara had been transferred.
Dakuswara herself revealed on Twitter that the day Pompeo came to the company’s headquarters, she asked Pompeo two questions: one is what Pompeo is doing to restore the reputation of the United States; and the other is whether Pompeo regrets that there will be a second Trump administration.
Dakuswara said Pompeo ignored her problems. The video released by the female reporter showed that as soon as the female reporter asked the first question, Pompeo began to turn around and walk out of the building. Before leaving, Pompeo also made a thumbs-up gesture, which implied an unclear meaning.
According to the Washington Post on the 12th, Riley is the leader of the Voice of America who made the decision to transfer. Riley has just been appointed as the head of the “government-funded agency” by Parker, the leader of the company group. Dakuswala joined the Voice as early as 2003 and began to serve as White House correspondent for the agency in mid-2018.
At present, a spokesperson for the Voice of America and Riley declined to comment on the report.
In fact, Pompeo’s visit made many employees of the Voice of America dissatisfied. Last week, a small number of Voice employees filed an anonymous report complaining that Pompeo’s participation in the Voice’s event would pose a “coronavirus threat”, the Washington Post said.
At the same time, the employees said that the order to broadcast Pompeo’s speech on the VOA TV channel and live broadcast was equivalent to helping the U.S. government do “political propaganda”.
On the 11th of this month, Pompeo came to the headquarters of the Voice of America to speak. He stressed that the media could not hold on America’s shortcomings all day long, declaring that “the United States is the greatest country in world history and even the history of human civilization. This is not fake news.
“I’m not saying we’re going to ignore our shortcomings, rather, we’re going to acknowledge them.” Pompeo said, “But you are not ‘Vice of America, you only stare at the dark side of our great country all day long. You are the Voice of America.”
The Washington Post pointed out that after Pompeo’s speech, Voice of America director Riley gave a brief question to Pompeo, but he did not mention recent events in the United States, such as the violent impact on the Capitol Hill by Trump supporters on January 6, and the United States’ reclassifying Cuba as “supporting for fear”. The news of the terrorist country.
The VOA event is not allowed to be attended by outside journalists, and journalists within the VOA are not allowed to ask questions. The report said that when several reporters present began to ask Pompeo questions loudly at the end of the event, the live broadcast of the Voice of America event was shut down in a few seconds.
Then, it is reported that when the female journalist Vedakuswara left the VOA building, she shouted two questions after Pompeo: “Mr. Secretary of State, what have you done to rebuild the reputation of the United States around the world? “Mr. Secretary of State, do you regret saying that there will be a second Trump administration?”
