On March 13, Kari Lake, appointed by Trump to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), announced on social media that USAGM will be cancelling its contracts with The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
“USAGM is an American taxpayer-funded News Organization with an 83-year history. We should not be paying outside news companies to tell us what the news is—with nearly a billion-dollar budget, we should be producing news ourselves. And if that’s not possible, the American taxpayer should demand to know why,” Lake wrote.
BNO News
Those three international news agencies do not direct “what the news is,” as Lake suggests. They were valuable sources in ensuring that USAGM received quality information in a timely manner. It is likely that L. Brent Bozell III, who was appointed by Trump to lead the USAGM and a critic of mainstream media, had a hand in these cancelling these contracts.
