Voice of America Is Still Here

Last week Donald Trump expressed a desire to imitate Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and create his own version of Pravda:

Trump pitched the state-run network as an alternative to CNN. "Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair and false way," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!"

The thing is, there's already such a network: Fox News. Yes, it's hard to tell whether Trump is controlling Fox News or Fox News is controlling Trump, with Sean Hannity constantly buzzing in Trump's ear and even appearing at campaign events.

I calculate the odds of Trump dumping VP Mike Pence for Hannity as vice president in 2020 at 60-40. Trump's hired pretty much everyone else who's left in the White House based on much they kissed his ass in interviews on Fox News.

All joking aside, the US government already has a news service that provides factual reporting around the world: Voice of America.

President Franklin Roosevelt created the VOA during World War II to broadcast behind enemy lines what its current director, Amanda Bennett, said was "truthful news about the war, in contrast with Nazi propaganda."

VOA was a lifeline for people behind the Iron Curtain during the Soviet era, because it reported the truth, warts and all, about Russia, Europe and the United States. That tradition continues today: take a look at this article about rampant absentee ballot voter fraud in North Carolina.

VOA, a government agency, is reporting the same truths that CNN, NPR, CBS, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, and other "mainstream media" organizations are reporting.

During the worst of the Cold War most Eastern Bloc citizens had a positive view of the United States and America, because VOA and Radio Free Europe didn't slant the news. They just gave the facts.

That's how you earn people's trust.

But Trump doesn't have a clue about that.