An Obama administration-era bill due to be signed any day is causing critics of President-elect Donald Trump to worry about how the government will present news to the world.
Fox News' Howard Kurtz examines the discussion around a proposition to get rid of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a group that currently oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and other communications agencies affiliated with the U.S. government. As part of the bill, which could be signed as early as Tuesday, the president will nominate one chief executive to replace the board.
As Kurtz wrote, the biased media is growing concerned.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and told Kurtz the decision to disband the BBG did not involve Trump.
"It's hysteria," Royce said. "It's a smokescreen that some have put up. This has nothing to do with the incoming president of the United States. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump."
The measure was actually brought up a year ago and has support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The media, however, is now spinning it into something larger than it really is, Kurtz explained.
Among the concerns are Trump could put someone like Stephen Bannon, who will serve as chief strategist in Trump's White House, in charge of official government news outlets. Some have tried to tie Bannon with the alt-right, a group often associated with white nationalists.
Politico's story on the matter carried the headline, "Trump to inherit state-run TV network with expanded reach." A Washington Post editorial titled, "A big change to U.S. broadcasting is coming — and it's one Putin might admire" contained this passage:
"With a confirming vote by the GOP-controlled Senate, President-elect Donald Trump will be able to install the editor of Breitbart News or another propagandist of his choice to direct how the United States is presented to the world by VOA, or how Russia is covered by RL. If Congress' intention was for U.S. broadcasting to rival the Kremlin's, it may well get its wish. . . . The damage to U.S. interests could be considerable."
Kurtz said that is all talk from the media.
"So a legislative change that would have been unremarkable in a Hillary Clinton administration has become, for some in the media, a story about Breitbart and the alt-right," he wrote.
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