Talk:Voice of America
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US Backed State Media
@JArthur1984: your recent edit demonstrates that you misunderstood a basic fact.
Would you please pin point to me where you got that the Voice of America is "an agency"?
It is financed by an agency called the U.S. Agency for Global Media. There's a big difference here!
Everything was already referenced in the lead.
The version before your edit had the following:
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the international radio broadcaster of the United States of America.
[...] It is financed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media after the approval of the Congress.
Currently is it as follows:
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international radio broadcasting state media agency funded by the United States of America. [...] It is financed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media after the approval of the Congress.
To label it "state media" in the first sentence is misleading. It is governed by an independent state agency after the approval of the congress. Is it too hard to distinguish between this democratic process and the direct influence of the state media as a mouthpiece of the government? An example of the latter is
- RT news,
- Rossiya 1,
- CCTV, and
- Voice of the Arabs
where such sources are mouthpieces of their own governments, aren't critical of them, whereas the Voice of America reports about everything, whether it's critical or not. These are simply basics.
--Esperfulmo (talk) 23:50, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- It's part of the of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). But there are plenty of words other than agency -- "network," "broadcaster," or "institution" could all work instead of "agency" without losing any meaning.
- VOA is state-media. There are no efforts made to compare it to your other examples, so I'm not clear why you bring these up. There are numerous kinds of state-media, with more or less government editorial control, depending. State-media is not the same as "mouthpiece," and it's not necessarily a pejorative term (this depends on the reader's perspective). You can familiarize yourself with wikilinked state media article to develop a sense of the different state media approaches that exist. JArthur1984 (talk) 01:55, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- This is just not supported by sources. Most sources call it an 'international broadcaster' - certainly no consensus to be found on including state media in the first sentence. If anything, this should be a section that outlines the dispute with reliable sources before summarizing in the lead (I have reworked that sentence to remove the term state-media). Superb Owl (talk) 14:56, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Well it's certainly not privatized. So it has to be government-funded whether parent company up or several parent companies up. Under the US model of government the legislature is who controls the purse. So in coming from congress that is Federally funded if you don't want to use "state funded". CaribDigita (talk) 18:08, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
- This is just not supported by sources. Most sources call it an 'international broadcaster' - certainly no consensus to be found on including state media in the first sentence. If anything, this should be a section that outlines the dispute with reliable sources before summarizing in the lead (I have reworked that sentence to remove the term state-media). Superb Owl (talk) 14:56, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
VOA under the Biden Administration.
It would be nice to have more text describing VOA during the Biden administration. 2605:A000:BFC0:21:C94D:52F:CA1F:5155 (talk) 00:09, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- What did Biden do at the media outlet? Does it 'Fact Check' Trump now? CaribDigita (talk) 17:25, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Use of present tense
Is it appropriate to continue using the present tense in article given VOA has been effectively defunct since March 2025? Engulf5644 (talk) 19:06, 31 December 2025 (UTC)
Propaganda function
"The VOA served its propaganda function by pursuing objective journalism" is a patently absurd oxymoron. ~2026-44135-1 (talk) 03:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
- What's a better way to word "it tells everyone how great america is by contrasting its brand of [press] freedom with states that suppress objective journalism?" — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:10, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
- We state it in Wiki-voice but it is sourced to the VOA's own mission statement and a 1976 US government appropriations Act. Burrobert (talk) 12:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
- I think that's there specifically for the charter. The goal of VOA as per above is well documented in many of the sources we cite IIRC, but yes it would be good to pull those sources and put them there. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:51, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
- As you say, independent reliable sources stating that VOA does what its charter says it is supposed to do would be required to use Wiki-voice for a statement of this type. Otherwise, the statement needs some sort of attribution, if included at all. Burrobert (talk) 13:13, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
- I think that's there specifically for the charter. The goal of VOA as per above is well documented in many of the sources we cite IIRC, but yes it would be good to pull those sources and put them there. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:51, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
- We state it in Wiki-voice but it is sourced to the VOA's own mission statement and a 1976 US government appropriations Act. Burrobert (talk) 12:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)