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Washington: Secretary of State Michael Pompeo pressed the Voice of America to be less critical of the U.S., delivering a speech that appeared at odds with the news organization’s mandate to maintain editorial independence from the government.
Pompeo’s address Monday at the Voice of America headquarters in Washington where he said VOA “isn’t the place to give authoritarian regimes in Beijing or Tehran a platform” adds to efforts in the waning days of the Trump administration to rein in the government-funded broadcaster.
“It is not fake news for you to broadcast that this is the greatest nation in the history of the world and the greatest nation this civilization has ever known,” Pompeo said. “I’m not saying ignore our faults. Indeed, just the opposite. It is to acknowledge them. But this isn’t the Vice of America, focusing on everything that’s wrong with our great nation. It’s the Voice of America.”
Pompeo also accused Beijing of trying to exert control over shipping lanes in the South China Sea, and of covering up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak early on.