Voice of America's anti-Trump bias runs deep
Further to yesterday's article on the anti-Trump bias by the moderators of the Voice of America (VOA) show Issues in the News, a look around some of VOA's other Twitter accounts reveals similar anti-Trump sentiment.
Keep in mind that such views run contrary to VOA's charter. In short, they appear to be illegal.
Moving on to Jee Abbey Lee, who is VOA's social media expert and a regular contributor to the station's main newscast, International Edition. Ms. Lee appears to have been born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Lee's Twitter feed indicates a less than stellar face for VOA, such as a tweet from last week where she comments that "[w]hen I ask my interns to tweet more, this is what I get." Of course, she is retweeting her interns' view that he "[F****] love green tea." Now that is certainly working to build a social media stream as the VOA charter intends.
But more importantly, Lee's views on Trump seem clear in this tweet from February 28, where she calls him un-American: "Donald Trump. Standing up for everything un-American since 1946." In another posting, Ms. Lee states that "[d]espite #NeverTrump efforts, Trump trumped 'em all #RIPGOP."
Carol Castiel, VOA's director of current affairs programming and the host of multiple shows on the broadcaster, has been prolific in sending out anti-Trump quotes and stories via her VOA-affiliated Twitter account, as well as a couple of negative pieces on Bernie Sanders, yet she has a glowing timeline for Hillary Clinton – especially the NYT's endorsement of Clinton. So much for "balanced" coverage of each candidate, as the VOA charter requires. If Twitter histories are any indication, Ms. Castiel would be a clear Clinton promoter.
So the anti-Trump bias at VOA runs broad and deep.
That said, Trump isn't helping his own cause, given his emerging incoherence on Muslims. After proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. before he received the GOP nomination, he is now engaged in a massive flip-flop over London's new Muslim mayor. According to Trump, "[t]here will always be exceptions" to any bans – with enough exceptions, there is no ban. Plus he "was happy to see that" London elected a far-left-wing Labour Party Muslim mayor (rather than a Conservative candidate), and he thinks such a result is "a very good thing."