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Epistemic capture

Laundering Propaganda Through Voice of America

Active subversion
Case Dossier EPI-PRO-001
STATUS
Active subversion
SEVERITY
Critical
DATE
2025-05-07
DOMAIN
Epistemic Capture
SUBDOMAIN
State Media
CAPTURE VECTOR
Substitution strategy
TAGS
voa propaganda oan kari-lake usagm public-diplomacy information-laundering
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After cutting funding and cancelling contracts with legitimate wire services like AP and Reuters, the Trump administration moves to fill the void at Voice of America with 'free' content from the pro-Trump network OAN.

Summary

In May 2025, Kari Lake—Trump’s representative at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM)—announced that Voice of America (VOA) would begin utilizing content from the One America News Network (OAN). This move followed a funding freeze that had kept VOA dark since mid-March and the deliberate cancellation of contracts with neutral wire services including the Associated Press, Reuters, and AFP. Lake framed the integration of OAN’s “free of charge” content as “an enormous benefit to the American taxpayer.”

Capture Mechanism: The Substitution Strategy

This case illustrates a sophisticated two-step capture mechanism:

  1. Resource Starvation: The administration first crippled the agency’s ability to function independently by cutting funding and severing ties with the “gold standard” of international reporting (AP/Reuters).
  2. Ideological Backfill: Citing cost savings (“free of charge”), the regime filled the resulting void with hyper-partisan content. This transforms a public diplomacy asset into a vehicle for domestic political messaging without the need for direct statutory overhaul.

Evidence of Content Degradation

The “news” being integrated into VOA includes OAN programming that is explicitly sycophantic toward the regime. The AP report highlights OAN content such as:

  • “100 Golden Days”: An “investigation” claiming the President “eradicated” inflation and ushered in a “new era of American prosperity.”
  • Performative Loyalty: OAN White House correspondent Daniel Baldwin asking the President, “What gave you the moral courage and conviction to step forward and lead?”

Statutory Violations

The integration of OAN content directly violates VOA’s statutory charter (22 U.S.C. § 6202), which mandates that the service be “accurate, objective, and comprehensive” and represent “not a single segment of American society.”

Impact

This action completes the transformation of VOA from a tool of soft power into a mechanism for information laundering. By placing OAN content under the VOA masthead, the administration gives fringe partisan propaganda the imprimatur of the U.S. government, validating the narratives of foreign autocrats who have long claimed that Western media is indistinguishable from state propaganda.