this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Interesting find! There were also 48 states when that was written though, so we should probably take its current-day accuracy with a grain of salt.
Indeed, the nature of VOA has changed over time. During the Cold War it served to bring accurate news to countries behind the Iron Curtain and fight Soviet propaganda. (The Soviet government jammed it during this time.) Obviously this mission has changed since then as well since the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Ultimately its current reputation of journalistic objectivity does not depend on nearly century-old records but on what we can see today; dedicated journalists and accurate reporting.
Ah yes the propaganda outlet started for the purposes of propaganda and staffed with people all doing the job of propaganda has surely not continued to employ people ideologically aligned with performing propaganda ever since! Nooooooo. Somewhere along the line must have fired every single member of staff and built a reputable new outlet from the top down. Surely!
To quote a reagan fuckhead - "Personnel is policy".
You are not immune to propaganda. And you should seriously take a moment to read the shit you are writing and ask yourself how much of it is you repeating propaganda. You sound like you're literally writing PR copy.
I mean, France was once ruled by an Emperor; does that mean it still secretly is? Or did, like, something change in the last two hundred years in that regard? Do you think Napoleon is still secretly in charge there too?
You’re right personnel is policy though. And if you did any research whatsoever instead of posting nonsense on the Internet, you’d see that the journalists who work at the VOA are actually journalists, not propagandists. It’s not hard, the facts are out there. Maybe you should pursue them instead of indulge in baseless conspiracy theories.
But I’m easy to convince! Feel free to link me evidence that the VOA is still American propaganda and not real journalism. Surely reputable sources and good evidence are easy to find? I mean, if this was written a hundred years ago, there must be something else between then and now?
Of the two of us I am the only one that has done any research at all. As I am the only one who bothered to see what language the US uses for its own media outlet.
Your research consists of looking up propaganda sites that suit you, and parroting whatever they say regardless of any critical thought that might suggest they're not reliable. You don't think for yourself. At all. All you do is defer all of your thinking to these ""sources"" when they're not primary sources and are literally obviously spouting easily falsifiable shit.
What research was that exactly? Watching a literal propaganda YouTube video and deciding it was the truth? You know that video was in English too, right? Doesn't that mean it's been compromised by the CIA?
Anyway... you clearly just have no idea what you're talking about and have no ability to discern fact from fiction. For crowing that I need to stop being propagandized, I'm the only one here that appears to have done anything even actual research and employing critical thought.
Stop getting your information from YouTube. Duh.
Stop getting your information from the CIA. Duh.
It seems like there's no reason to doubt the US Archive's internal records on this regard. You say surely things have changed, but there's little in the way of compelling evidence that that's the case, right? Propaganda doesn't mean an absence of factual reporting, it means slanted, biased reporting, and it's not exactly a stretch by any means to suggest that VOICE OF AMERICA might have an agenda in their reporting, right? Pretty much every country that disseminates its own media employs propaganda because it's a proven means of control. I understand you respect the service they provide but consider the purpose of propaganda, its intended effect, and how it might be influencing your stance on this matter.
There's a ton of compelling evidence that VOA is not propaganda.
I linked a bunch of media bias and fact checkers earlier: in case you missed them, here they are again. So... yeah, it seems from the available evidence it has in fact changed in a hundred years.
Unless, of course, you think that every media fact checker is wrong. In which case, again, it must be easy to provide some kind of source or evidence that either they are, or that VOA is in fact merely propaganda.
I said propaganda isn't necessarily at odds with facts, and for what it's worth I saw the bias reports, but they're talking about Left/Right bias and we're talking about nationalistic bias. Propaganda isn't an inherently left/right concept. There's also no reason to suggest I think "every media fact checker is wrong", you're arguing against something no one here has said.
Other people have said it, apologies for pinning it on you. :)
Those don't talk just about left/right bias, but also about accuracy and correctness, which is more why I was referencing the fact checkers.
I guess this depends on what you mean by "propaganda" to a certain extent. The usual usage of the term is to refer to information that is simply biased or misleading, advanced in service of a particular political point of view. In that definition, I would say VOA is not propaganda; it reports truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable to the United States or its government.
That said, it is certainly doing so in espousing the values of freedom of journalism and information and hoping to inculcate those values in its listeners by virtue of example. If you think that mission is itself American nationalistic propaganda then I guess yeah, you could say VOA is propaganda. I don't think this is a commonly-accepted definition of the term however.
My understanding of propaganda doesn't require the information to necessarily be misleading (don't get me wrong, blatant propaganda frequently is), just presented with an intention to promote a certain group's interests. I can see where the contention comes from, and I'm sure we could both have a lengthy discussion about it, but I don't think it's really the time or place, and it sounds like we aren't too far off from understanding one another anyways. Hope you have a good day/night wherever you are!