US-funded outlets like the Voice of America or Radio Liberty used to be overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The bipartisan board includes the US Secretary of State and serves as a buffer between state-sponsored outlets and the actual administration.
However, now that is changing as the BBG’s foreign media operations will be controlled by a chief executive directly appointed by the President.
Don DeBar told Sputnik that, “We are talking more about a change of form than substance I think if we are talking about the White House taking control. Clinton was president when the BBG was formed in 1994 under the International Broadcasting Act and that act established a bipartisan board consisting of nine voting members, eight of whom were appointed by the president and the ninth was the Secretary of State.”
Talking about how wills this change with the arrival of the new President-elect Donald Trump, DeBar said, “This architecture wasn’t constructed by Trump it was constructed by Obama, Bush and Bill Clinton and series of presidents going back to Harry Truman.”
The journalist went on to discuss the control of media by the US government and how much censorship and propaganda goes on in the editorial boards and television.
“When you are talking about a president having control of a microphone to speak to the American people and the world, you have to wonder who is programming the teleprompter from which the president is reading from. It is a fundamental question,” DeBar said.
He further spoke about the composition of the houses of Congress and the people who are influencing the US government and foreign policy. These people according to the journalist are very powerful and wealthy and they decide many world affairs.
“You actually have the elite who have more control over everything including the media, public discourse, the operation of the government and operation of the economy,” DeBar said.
The journalist further spoke about how in Russia watching CNN or BBC is possible anywhere because the channels are available but in the US channels like RT are not even available in most of the counties.
