quote:

The Voice of America defended itself Friday against accusations by the Trump White House that the news service is uncritically relaying Chinese propaganda about that country's effort to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

"VOA too often speaks for America's adversaries—not its citizens," The White House charged in an official statement released Thursday. "Journalists should report the facts, but VOA has instead amplified Beijing's propaganda." (Boldface reflects the original statement.)

The remark was notable even from an administration that misses few opportunities to attack news organizations for reporting that reflects poorly upon the president.

The statement was released under the headline, "Voice of America spends your money to speak for authoritarian regimes." It attacked VOA for, among other things, a tweet showing a video of a light show against the Wuhan skyline. The show celebrated the end of the lockdown in that city, where the coronavirus first truly took flight.

The White House statement also took issue with the news agency calling the Chinese efforts in Wuhan to contain the virus a "model" for other nations. It said VOA relied on unverifiable Chinese government statistics in some reporting. Those numbers have come under severe critical assessments from other countries' officials - and from the press, including journalists at Voice of America.

In a strongly worded response, Voice of America Director Amanda Bennett never mentioned the Trump administration. Instead, Bennett - a former top editor at the Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Bloomberg News, among other well-regarded outlets - noted that the Voice of America's freedom to report all sides of an issue is enshrined in a 1976 federal statute signed by President Gerald R. Ford, who, like Trump, was a Republican.

"Unlike China, VOA has stuck to verifiable facts, including publishing numerous articles in Mandarin, English and other languages that outed China's initial secrecy keeping information of the initial outbreak from the world," Bennett said. "VOA has thoroughly debunked much of the information coming from the Chinese government and government-controlled media."