Talk:Voice of America

message: Why do some users have a hard time accepting VOA as a propaganda outlet for the American government while easily labeling say RT America as a propaganda outlet for the Russian government. Oh I get it, Wikipedia is a biased online encyclopedia! Case closed. 91.146.137.194 (talk)
:: First provide arguments, you aren´t a God or something similar to say "some people" and speak bad about "those people" just because they do not see things from your point of view, Wikipedia belongs to everyone and if something is added to the article That may affect the balance of the same in a considerable way, that first has to be discussed. be a little more formal and stop using this part of this FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA to use it as a forum. This is not a site to contribute your personal opinions, it gives an idea that can IMPROVE THIS ARTICLE and later I and more people will discuss in a friendly way what can be done. THAT'S MUCH BETTER THAN GIVING AN UNSIGNED, IRRELEVANT COMMENT TO IMPROVE THIS ARTICLE. Thank you. Oh, by the way, sign your responses so you can face the consequences of tone comments like this. This encyclopedia is not the  biased encyclopedia  because for that we have people and Wikipedians of all points of view, with the aim of making our articles have a neutral point of view. So if you detect bias, please report it and do not make unpleasant and unhelpful comments to the encyclopedia article. Thanks for your time. --OfficeBlue (talk) 22:54, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course the VOA is a propaganda outlet. I don't know why anyone would contest that fact. Binksternet (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your point that the VOA is a propaganda medium, I mean that this encyclopedia, although it may contain biases, we are not totally biased by elements such as the strict NPOV policy. Therefore, although we can point out that we cannot defend positions such as "VOA is not a propaganda medium" or "yes it is", we cannot point them out and say that they are the majority of publishers, and that this encyclopedia is biased, by themselves. How it happened with the premise of the individual who started this thread. --OfficeBlue (talk) 01:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Propaganda Outlet 

message: I'd like to raise several concerns regarding the section Voice of America#Trump presidency politicization efforts. It seems to me that this section more properly belongs in the article U.S. Agency for Global Media. Much of the information discussed there deals with broader issues than just what happened at VOA, and concerns other networks managed by the USAGM, the overall USAGM management issues, the board appointments, etc. It makes more sense to move over this section to U.S. Agency for Global Media and leave a relatively short paragraph with a redirect in the VOA article. However, the other issue I see here is the length of the section. Even in the VOA article, the section appears to be overly long and exessively detailed, probably in the need of compression. If moved over to U.S. Agency for Global Media, in its current form the section would overwhelm that article and create significant WP:BALANCE problems there. So I am not sure what exactly should be done here and in which order, and extra opinions would be welcome. Nsk92 (talk) 16:39, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The sentence in the article that you object to is directly supported by the source cited, the Washington Post article (see the citation tag ref number [118] at the end of the sentence in question in the article), and in addition by the NPR source you cite yourself here . The WaPo sources directly says: "Lipien is a former VOA official." Note that the current text does not say that Lipien's blogs are "official" blogs, or that Lipien is a Trump voter or a Trump supporter. Instead the sentence says: "Pack named Ted Lipien, a former VOA official whose blog praised his efforts to change VOA into a pro-Trump propaganda outlet, as head of RFE/RL ..." That characterization is essentially supported by the WaPo source cited: "Lipien is a former VOA official who has run a blog titled BBG-USAGM Watch that is a forum for critical former VOA employees (BBG refers to USAGM’s former name). The blog has repeatedly asserted that VOA’s programming favors liberal views. It has also reported and commented favorably on Pack’s efforts to restructure the operation since he assumed the top job in June." However, since the source indeed does not mention Trump at all, I'll reword the relevant sentence in the article to correspond more closely to what the source actually says. Nsk92 (talk) 20:57, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

text: This is an exceptionally well written section. This story seems to be more about the U.S. Agency for Global Media, rather than about VOA. But VOA played the central role. So belongs here. My very best wishes (talk) 03:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

text: I won't weigh in on the factual accuracy of the section, but it is WAY too long. The organization is over 70 years old, but this 4 year period dominates the history section. If an editors wants to maintain the text, please consider making a separate article. I will soon pare it down to a summary. Ashmoo (talk) 12:49, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Trump presidency politicization efforts' section  

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:35, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: What is the meaning of the superscript "R"s and "T"s in the "Current languages" section? Normally I'd expect them to be hyperlinked to some sort of explanation at the bottom of the section or article. -- Beland (talk) 20:22, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Prior to a set of IP edits, there was a note saying "(radio programs are marked with an "R"; TV programs with a "T")". The IP edit also removed some of the languages. I don't have time to investigate further though. --Pokechu22 (talk) 20:33, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well spotted! I will restore the note. -- Beland (talk) 00:37, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  What do superscript R and T mean? 

message: The members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light whom were seeking safety in the EU are detained by the Turkish border police.
https://www.eureporter.co/world/turkey/2023/05/24/over-100-church-members-beaten-and-arrested-at-the-turkish-border/
https://sofiaglobe.com/2023/05/24/members-of-religious-minority-seeking-asylum-pushed-back-at-turkish-bulgarian-border/ 197.40.194.112 (talk) 22:09, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light whom were seeking safety in the EU are detained by the Turkish border police. 

message: In early 2008 there . There is some old talk page discussion (just two comments) that seems to have one person arguing that the sources are mostly pro-ET-govt, and the other talking about a VOA/Ethiopia crisis and restoring the material. The sources would have to be checked - probably many may be only on Wayback; the WP:RELTIME violations would have to be fixed; and the general NPOV would have to be checked. The material was  by an IP editor who only did , and nobody seemed to notice the deletion. Boud (talk) 23:45, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The report by Annette Sheckler - former Horn of Africa service chief for a year - is a good source. I couldn't find much else that was usable - mostly dead urls, repeat references that were given independent numbers. An incident of Ethiopian authorities apparently blocked VOA + Deutsche Welle for a brief period but doesn't really fit in this article. Any good journalism source should expect to be censored in countries with governments intolerant of independent media; VOA has almost certainly been censored many times in many countries. The ref could be put into something like a section of Censorship in Ethiopia.In my rewrite, although I browsed the old text, I wrote new text based on the sources - there wasn't much point trying to follow the old text. Boud (talk) 22:22, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical VOA/Ethiopia section worth restoring 

message: I added this context to the rumor.  It was immediately reverted by a brand new IP editor with the edit summary "the ref does not refer to the rumor, denied, by unnamed persons, as saying this was a cia site, so this is irrelevant".  I don't see the justification for this deletion.  Since it was reverted, instead I added the material and the sourcing for it.  --David Tornheim (talk) 07:54, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: , "See also" links go into a dedicated section at the end of the article. Such links should not be inserted into the body of the article. Please see MOS:SEEALSO. Cullen328 (talk) 08:03, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Restore back to the long-standing status quo of 2/6/24 before new IP editor started changing this section to make it less WP:NPOV that the original.  IPs version does not reflect the articles accurately and instead focuses too heavily on official denials rather than the cause of the rumor (see CIA_black_sites), past suspicions of the site, and reporters flocking to the site.  Discuss:  Talk:Voice_of_America#CIA_black_op_site
I suggest we work on a compromise agreeable to all.  I think we might agree that the original title "Relay station used as a CIA black site" makes it sound too much like the rumor was true. (Based on the WP:RS I have read, I do not believe that to be the case.  But my research would be considered WP:OR.)  The IP's far-too wordy version ("Unconfirmed and denied rumor that Thai relay station was used to interrogate terrorists") over-emphasizes the denials. There must be some middle-ground, which I tried to establish in my previous edit ("Rumor that Thai relay station was used as CIA black op site").  Other than the title, I had copied and pasted the material (and WP:RS) directly from the first paragraph of CIA_black_sites#Asia. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:40, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA black op site