Old Colleagues, New Conversation: Join Me and Kate Woodsome Live
Previewing our Substack live video chat set for Wednesday
And now for something completely different…
On Wednesday evening at 19:00 EST (23:00 GMT), I will be joining my former Voice of America colleague Kate Woodsome, for a live video chat on her Substack. We’ll be taking questions from the audience.
This is only my second foray into this particular format at a time when the immediate, interactive and user-friendly tools offered by Substack are making it the platform of choice by journalists striking out on their own in the post-Twitter era.
My initial Substack live adventure was a hastily arranged three-way streamed conversation hosted by former CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta, just a few days after the Voice of America was DOGE’d (aka ‘Bloody Saturday’). The Acosta chat included Elise Labott, who has been a friend since he nearly two decades as an international correspondent for CNN. She is currently the Edward R. Murrow for Press Fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations. That went well, although I didn’t have adequate advance notice to promote it. I figured I’d eventually add the interactive capability to my Substack, The Newsguy.
Kate and I will have a lot to talk about tomorrow. Developments concerning the silenced Voice of America appear to be coming by the hour.
As I write this, our lawyers are awaiting word from the full US Circuit Court for D.C. on whether it will take up the request for an en banc hearing after the court’s 2-1 decision on Saturday afternoon to keep VOA in deep freeze. That superseded a decision those judges had just issued that upheld a federal district court judge’s order for USAGM to call back VOA staff and resume broadcasting. Widakuswara v. Lake is the case I am directly involved with and is one of numerous lawsuits since late January alleging executive overreach by the current administration.
As of Tuesday morning, a handful of our 1,350 staff were called back to the silent newsrooms but given no instructions. Their work email accounts are active but most everyone else remains on paid administrative leave with no access to VOA systems and forbidden from doing journalism.
As I mentioned yesterday during a live interview on MSNBC with Ana Cabrera, I believe it would take a Herculean effort to fully restore VOA in face of recalcitrant USAGM leadership that wavers in public statements between declaring reform (i.e. axing most of our language services) is the goal or that VOA is a "rotten fish” and trying to find a portion that you can eat” waste, corruption and security concerns. These are a repeat of the unfounded charges we heard in 2020 by previous politically appointed leadership and deemed meritless by a court ruling, an Office of Special Counsel report and a State Department OIG review. (You can read more about this drama in my favorably-reviewed book: Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President — and Why It Matters).
There are a lot of rumors flying around as to what USAGM intends to do next and hopefully we’ll be able to discuss some factual developments with Kate tomorrow.
In the meantime, check out the #SaveVOA video testimonials and developments are being posted to the SaveVOA social media accounts.
The Twitter/X account, which was suspended for unknown reasons, has been restored today by Elon Musk’s employees but who knows for how long, so I’d recommend following the more stable one on Bluesky. And if you are on Bluesky (the best Twitter replacement so far), you can add me there, as well.
Stay tuned.