Voice of America
Voice of America is a U.S. multimedia agency which serves as the United States government institution for non-military, external broadcasting. It is the largest U.S. international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content in 47 languages which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe. It is primarily viewed by foreign audiences, so VOA programming has an influence on public opinion abroad regarding the United States and its people.
VOA was established in 1942, and the VOA charter was signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford.
VOA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent agency of the U.S. government. Funds are appropriated annually by Congress under the budget for embassies and consulates. In 2016, VOA broadcast an estimated 1,800 hours of radio and TV programming each week to approximately 236.6 million people worldwide with about 1,050 employees and a taxpayer-funded annual budget of.
Some commentators consider Voice of America to be a form of propaganda. However, VOA's Best Practices Guide claims that "The accuracy, quality and credibility of the Voice of America are its most important assets, and they rest on the audiences’ perception of VOA as an objective and reliable source of U.S., regional and world news and information." Surveys show that 84% of VOA's audiences say they trust VOA to provide accurate and reliable information, and a similar percentage say that VOA helps them understand current events relevant to their lives.
In response to the request of the United States Department of Justice that RT register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Russia's Justice Ministry labeled Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as foreign agents in December 2017.
Current languages
The Voice of America website had five English language broadcasts as of 2014. Additionally, the VOA website has versions in 46 foreign languages :- Afan Oromo *
- Albanian * +
- Amharic *
- Armenian +
- Azerbaijani +
- Bambara *
- Bangla * +
- Bosnian +
- Burmese * +
- Cantonese * +
- Mandarin * +
- Dari Persian * +
- Filipino *
- French * +
- Georgian *
- Haitian Creole *
- Hausa *
- Indonesian * +
- Khmer * +
- Kinyarwanda *
- Kirundi *
- Korean *
- Kurdish *
- Lao *
- Lingala *
- Macedonian +
- Ndebele *
- Pashto +
- Persian * +
- Portuguese *
- Rohingya *
- Russian +
- Sango *
- Serbian +
- Shona *
- Somali *
- Spanish * +
- Swahili *
- Thai *
- Tibetan * +
- Tigrinya *
- Turkish +
- Ukrainian +
- Urdu * +
- Uzbek * +
- Vietnamese * +
- Wolof
- English * +
History
American private shortwave broadcasting before World War II
Before World War II, all American shortwave stations were in private hands. Privately controlled shortwave networks included the National Broadcasting Company's International Network, which broadcast in six languages, the Columbia Broadcasting System's Latin American international network, which consisted of 64 stations located in 18 different countries, the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation in Cincinnati, Ohio, and General Electric which owned and operated WGEO and WGEA, both based in Schenectady, New York, and KGEI in San Francisco, all of which had shortwave transmitters. Experimental programming began in the 1930s, but there were fewer than 12 transmitters in operation. In 1939, the Federal Communications Commission set the following policy:A licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only an international broadcast service which will reflect the culture of this country and which will promote international goodwill, understanding and cooperation. Any program solely intended for, and directed to an audience in the continental United States does not meet the requirements for this service.
This policy was intended to enforce the State Department's Good Neighbor Policy, but some broadcasters felt that it was an attempt to direct censorship.
Shortwave signals to Latin America were regarded as vital to counter Nazi propaganda around 1940. Initially, the Office of Coordination of Information sent releases to each station, but this was seen as an inefficient means of transmitting news. The director of Latin American relations at the Columbia Broadcasting System was Edmund A. Chester, and he supervised the development of CBS's extensive "La Cadena de las Americas" radio network to improve broadcasting to South America during the 1940s.
Also included among the cultural diplomacy programming on the Columbia Broadcasting System was the musical show Viva America which featured the Pan American Orchestra and the artistry of several noted musicians from both North and South America, including Alfredo Antonini, Juan Arvizu, Eva Garza, Elsa Miranda, Nestor Mesta Chaires, Miguel Sandoval, John Serry Sr., and Terig Tucci. By 1945, broadcasts of the show were carried by 114 stations on CBS's "La Cadena de las Americas" network in 20 Latin American nations. These broadcasts proved to be highly successful in supporting President Franklin Roosevelt's policy of Pan-Americanism throughout South America during World War II.
World War II
Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government's Office of the Coordinator of Information had already begun providing war news and commentary to the commercial American shortwave radio stations for use on a voluntary basis through its Foreign Information Service headed by playwright Robert E. Sherwood, the playwright who served as president Roosevelt’s speech writer and information advisor. Direct programming began a week after the United States’ entry into World War II in December 1941, with the first broadcast from the San Francisco office of the FIS via General Electric’s KGEI transmitting to the Philippines in English. The next step was to broadcast to Germany, which was called Stimmen aus Amerika and was transmitted on February 1, 1942. It was introduced by "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and included the pledge: "Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth." Roosevelt approved this broadcast, which then-Colonel William J. Donovan and Sherwood had recommended to him. It was Sherwood who actually coined the term "The Voice of America" to describe the shortwave network that began its transmissions on February 1, from 270 Madison Avenue in New York City.The Office of War Information, when organized in the middle of 1942, officially took over VOA's operations. VOA reached an agreement with the British Broadcasting Corporation to share medium-wave transmitters in Britain, and expanded into Tunis in North Africa and Palermo and Bari, Italy as the Allies captured these territories. The OWI also set up the American Broadcasting Station in Europe.
Asian transmissions started with one transmitter in California in 1941; services were expanded by adding transmitters in Hawaii and, after recapture, the Philippines.
By the end of the war, VOA had 39 transmitters and provided service in 40 languages. Programming was broadcast from production centers in New York and San Francisco, with more than 1,000 programs originating from New York. Programming consisted of music, news, commentary, and relays of U.S. domestic programming, in addition to specialized VOA programming.
About half of VOA's services, including the Arabic service, were discontinued in 1945. In late 1945, VOA was transferred to the Department of State.
Cold War
In 1947, VOA started broadcasting to the Soviet citizens in Russia under the pretext of countering "more harmful instances of Soviet propaganda directed against American leaders and policies" on the part of the internal Soviet Russian-language media, according to John B. Whitton's treatise, Cold War Propaganda. The Soviet Union responded by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts on April 24, 1949.Charles W. Thayer headed VOA in 1948–49.
Over the next few years, the U.S. government debated the best role of Voice of America. The decision was made to use VOA broadcasts as a part of its foreign policy to fight the propaganda of the Soviet Union and other countries.
The Arabic service resumed on January 1, 1950, with a half-hour program. This program grew to 14.5 hours daily during the Suez Crisis of 1956, and was six hours a day by 1958.
In 1952, Voice of America installed a studio and relay facility aboard a converted U.S. Coast Guard cutter renamed Courier whose target audience was Soviet Union and other members of Warsaw Pact. The Courier was originally intended to become the first in a fleet of mobile, radio broadcasting ships that built upon U.S. Navy experience during WWII in using warships as floating broadcasting stations. However, the Courier eventually dropped anchor off the island of Rhodes, Greece with permission of the Greek government to avoid being branded as a pirate radio broadcasting ship. This VOA offshore station stayed on the air until the 1960s when facilities were eventually provided on land. The Courier supplied training to engineers who later worked on several of the European commercial offshore broadcasting stations of the 1950s and 1960s.
Control of VOA passed from the State Department to the U.S. Information Agency when the latter was established in 1953 to transmit worldwide, including to the countries behind the Iron Curtain and to the People's Republic of China.
Starting in the 1950s, VOA broadcast American jazz on Voice of America Jazz Hour from 1955 until 2003. Hosted for most of that period by Willis Conover, the program had 30 million listeners at its peak. A program aimed at South Africa in 1956 broadcast two hours nightly, and special programs such as The Newport Jazz Festival were also transmitted. This was done in association with tours by U.S. musicians, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington, sponsored by the State Department. From August 1952 through May 1953, Billy Brown, a high school senior in Westchester County, New York, had a Monday night program in which he shared everyday happenings in Yorktown Heights, New York. Brown's program ended due to its popularity: his "chatty narratives" attracted so much fan mail, VOA couldn't afford the $500 a month in clerical and postage costs required to respond to listeners' letters.
Throughout the Cold War, many of the targeted countries' governments sponsored jamming of VOA broadcasts, which sometimes led critics to question the broadcasts' actual impact. For example, in 1956, Polish People's Republic stopped jamming VOA transmissions, but People's Republic of Bulgaria continued to jam the signal through the 1970s. Chinese language VOA broadcasts were jammed beginning in 1956 and extending through 1976. However, after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, interviews with participants in anti-Soviet movements verified the effectiveness of VOA broadcasts in transmitting information to socialist societies. The People's Republic of China diligently jams VOA broadcasts. Cuba has also been reported to interfere with VOA satellite transmissions to Iran from its Russian-built transmission site at Bejucal. David Jackson, former director of Voice of America, noted: "The North Korean government doesn't jam us, but they try to keep people from listening through intimidation or worse. But people figure out ways to listen despite the odds. They're very resourceful."
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, VOA covered some of the era's most important news, including Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and Neil Armstrong's first walk on the moon. During the Cuban missile crisis, VOA broadcast around-the-clock in Spanish.
In the early 1980s, VOA began a $1.3 billion rebuilding program to improve broadcast with better technical capabilities. Also in the 1980s, VOA also added a television service, as well as special regional programs to Cuba, Radio Martí and TV Martí. Cuba has consistently attempted to jam such broadcasts and has vociferously protested U.S. broadcasts directed at Cuba.
In September 1980, VOA started broadcasting to Afghanistan in Dari and in Pashto in 1982. At the same time, VOA started to broadcast U.S. government editorials, clearly separated from the programming by audio cues.
In 1985, VOA Europe was created as a special service in English that was relayed via satellite to AM, FM, and cable affiliates throughout Europe. With a contemporary format including live disc jockeys, the network presented top musical hits as well as VOA news and features of local interest 24 hours a day. VOA Europe was closed down without advance public notice in January 1997 as a cost-cutting measure. It was followed by VOA Express, which from July 4, 1999 revamped into VOA Music Mix. Since November 1, 2014 stations are offered VOA1.
In 1989, Voice of America expanded its Mandarin and Cantonese programming to reach the millions of Chinese and inform the country about the pro-democracy movement within the country, including the demonstration in Tiananmen Square.
Starting in 1990, the U.S. consolidated its international broadcasting efforts, with the establishment of the Bureau of Broadcasting.
Post–Cold War
With the breakup of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, VOA added many additional language services to reach those areas. This decade was marked by the additions of Tibetan, Kurdish, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian, and Rwanda-Rundi language services.In 1993, the Clinton administration advised cutting funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as it was felt post-Cold War information and influence was not needed in Europe. This plan was not well received, and he then proposed the compromise of the International Broadcasting Act. The Broadcasting Board of Governors was established and took control from the Board for International Broadcasters which previously oversaw funding for RFE/RL.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the International Broadcasting Act into law. This law established the International Broadcasting Bureau as a part of the U.S. Information Agency and created the Broadcasting Board of Governors with oversight authority. In 1998, the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act was signed into law and mandated that BBG become an independent federal agency as of October 1, 1999. This act also abolished the U.S.I.A. and merged most of its functions with those of the State Department.
In 1994, Voice of America became the first broadcast-news organization to offer continuously updated programs on the Internet.
In April 2020, the Trump administration accused Voice of America of being a mouthpiece for authoritarian regimes that "speaks for America’s adversaries," and of "promoting propaganda" instead of "promoting freedom and democracy."
Cuts in services
The Arabic Service was abolished in 2002 and replaced by a new radio service, called the Middle East Radio Network or Radio Sawa, with an initial budget of $22 million. Radio Sawa offered mostly Western and Middle Eastern popular songs with periodic brief news bulletins. Today, the network has expanded to television with Alhurra and to various social media and websites.On May 16, 2004; Worldnet, a satellite television service, was merged into the VOA network.
Radio programs in Russian ended in July 2008. In September 2008, VOA eliminated the Hindi language service after 53 years. Broadcasts in Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian and Bosnian also ended. These reductions were part of American efforts to concentrate more resources to broadcast to the Muslim world.
In September 2010, VOA began its radio broadcasts in Sudan. As U.S. interests in South Sudan have grown, there is a desire to provide people with free information.
In 2013, VOA ended foreign language transmissions on shortwave and medium wave to Albania, Georgia, Iran and Latin America; as well as English language broadcasts to the Middle East and Afghanistan. The movement was done due to budget cuts.
On July 1, 2014, VOA cut most of its shortwave transmissions in English to Asia. Shortwave broadcasts in Azerbaijani, Bengali, Khmer, Kurdish, Lao, and Uzbek were dropped too. On August 11, 2014, the Greek service ended after 72 years on air.
List of languages
List of directors
- 1941–1942 Robert E. Sherwood
- 1942–1943 John Houseman
- 1943–1945 Louis G. Cowan
- 1945–1946 John Ogilvie
- 1948–1949 Charles W. Thayer
- 1949–1952 Foy D. Kohler
- 1952–1953 Alfred H. Morton
- 1953–1954 Leonard Erikson
- 1954–1956 John R. Poppele
- 1956–1958 Robert E. Burton
- 1958–1965 Henry Loomis
- 1965–1967 John Chancellor
- 1967–1968 John Charles Daly
- 1969–1977 Kenneth R. Giddens
- 1977–1979 R. Peter Straus
- 1980–1981 Mary Bitterman
- 1981–1982 James B. Conkling
- 1982 John Hughes
- 1982–1984 Kenneth Tomlinson
- 1985 Gene Pell
- 1986–1991 Dick Carlson
- 1991–1993 Chase Untermeyer
- 1994–1996 Geoffrey Cowan
- 1997–1999 Evelyn S. Lieberman
- 1999–2001 Sanford J. Ungar
- 2001–2002 Robert R. Reilly
- 2002–2006 David S. Jackson
- 2006–2011 Danforth W. Austin
- 2011–2015 David Ensor
- 2016 - 2020 Amanda Bennett
- 2020–Present Michael Pack
Agencies
Laws
Smith–Mundt Act
From 1948 until its amendment in 2013, Voice of America was forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens under § 501 of the Smith–Mundt Act. The act was amended as a result of the passing of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013. The intent of the legislation in 1948 was to protect the American public from propaganda actions by their own government and to have no competition with private American companies. The amendment had the intent of adapting to the Internet and allow American citizens to request access to VOA content.Internal policies
VOA charter
Under the Eisenhower administration in 1959, VOA Director Henry Loomis commissioned a formal statement of principles to protect the integrity of VOA programming and define the organization's mission, and was issued by Director George V. Allen as a directive in 1960 and was endorsed in 1962 by USIA director Edward R. Murrow. The principles were signed into law on July 12, 1976, by President Gerald Ford. It reads:The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio. To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners. These principles will therefore govern Voice of America broadcasts. 1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive. 2. VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions. 3. VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.
"Firewall"
The Voice of America Firewall was put in place with the 1976 VOA Charter and laws passed in 1994 and 2016 as a way of ensuring the integrity of VOA's journalism. This policy fights against propaganda and promotes unbiased and objective journalistic standards in the agency. The charter is one part of this firewall and the other laws assist in ensuring high standards of journalism."Two-source rule"
According to former VOA correspondent Alan Heil, the internal policy of VOA News is that any story broadcast must have two independently corroborating sources or have a staff correspondent actually witness an event.Newsroom
Voice of America's central newsroom has hundreds of journalists and dozens of full-time domestic and overseas correspondents, who are employees of the U.S. government or paid contractors. They are augmented by hundreds of contract correspondents and stringers throughout the world, who file in English or in one of VOA's other radio and television broadcast languages.In late 2005, VOA shifted some of its central-news operation to Hong Kong where contracted writers worked from a "virtual" office with counterparts on the overnight shift in Washington, D.C., but this operation was shut down in early 2008.
Shortwave frequencies
By December 2014, the number of transmitters and frequencies used by VOA had been greatly reduced. VOA still uses shortwave transmissions to cover some areas of Africa and Asia. Shortwave broadcasts still take place in these languages: Afaan Oromoo, Amharic, Bambara, Cantonese, Chinese, English, Indonesian, Korean and Swahili.''VOA Radiogram''
was an experimental Voice of America program starting in March 2013 which transmitted digital text and images via shortwave radiograms. There were 220 editions of the program, transmitted each weekend from the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station. The audio tones that comprised the bulk of each 30 minute program were transmitted via an analog transmitter, and could be decoded using a basic AM shortwave receiver with freely downloadable software of the Fldigi family. This software is available for Windows, Apple, Linux, and FreeBSD systems.Broadcasts can also be decoded using the free using any Android device.
The mode used most often on VOA Radiogram, for both text and images, was MFSK32, but other modes were also occasionally transmitted.
The final edition of VOA Radiogram was transmitted during the weekend of June 17–18, 2017, a week before the retirement of the program producer from VOA. An offer to continue the broadcasts on a contract basis was declined, so a follow-on show called Shortwave Radiogram began transmission on June 25, 2017 from the WRMI transmitting site in Okeechobee, Florida.
;Shortwave Radiogram program schedule
| Day | Time | Shortwave frequency | Origin |
| Saturday | 1600–1630 | 9.4 | Space Line, Bulgaria |
| Sunday | 0600–0630 | 7.73 | WRMI, Florida |
| Sunday | 2030–2100 | 11.58 | WRMI, Florida |
| Sunday | 2330–2400 | 11.58 | WRMI, Florida |
Transmission facilities
One of VOA's radio transmitter facilities was originally based on a site in Union Township in Butler County, Ohio, near Cincinnati. The site is now a recreational park with a lake, lodge, dog park, and Voice of America museum. The Bethany Relay Station operated from 1944 to 1994. Other former sites include California, Hawaii, Okinawa, Liberia, Costa Rica, Belize, and at least two in Greece.Between 1983 and 1990, VOA made significant upgrades to transmission facilities in Botswana, Morocco, Thailand, Kuwait, and Sao Tome.
Currently, VOA and USAGM continue to operate shortwave radio transmitters and antenna farms at International Broadcasting Bureau Greenville Transmitting Station in the United States, close to Greenville, North Carolina, "Site B." They do not use FCC-issued callsigns, since the FCC does not regulate communications by other federal government agencies. The IBB also operates a transmission facility on São Tomé and Concepcion, Tarlac, Philippines for VOA.
Comparing VOA-RFE-RL-RM to other broadcasters
In 1996, the U.S.'s international radio output consisted of 992 hours per week by VOA, 667 by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and 162 by Radio Marti.Controversy
Mullah Omar interview
In late September 2001, VOA aired a report that contained brief excerpts of an interview with then Taliban leader Mullah Omar Mohammad, along with segments from President Bush's post-9/11 speech to Congress, an expert in Islam from Georgetown University, and comments by the foreign minister of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. State Department officials including Richard Armitage and others argued that the report amounted to giving terrorists a platform to express their views. In response, reporters and editors argued for the VOA's editorial independence from its governors. VOA received praise from press organizations for its protests, and the following year in 2002, it won the University of Oregon's Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism.Abdul Malik Rigi interview
On April 2, 2007, Abdul Malik Rigi, the leader of Jundullah, a militant group with possible links to al-Qaeda, appeared on Voice of America's Persian language service. VOA introduced Rigi as "the leader of popular Iranian resistance movement." The interview resulted in public condemnation by the Iranian-American community, as well as the Iranian government. Jundullah is a militant organization that has been linked to numerous attacks on civilians, such as the 2009 Zahedan explosion.Tibetan protester interview
In February 2013, a documentary released by China Central Television interviewed a Tibetan self-immolator who failed to kill himself. The interviewee said he was motivated by Voice of America's broadcasts of commemorations of people who committed suicide in political self-immolation. VOA denied any allegations of instigating self-immolations and demanded that the Chinese station retract its report.Trump presidency concerns
After the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, several tweets by Voice of America seemed to support the widely criticized statements by White House press secretary Sean Spicer about the crowd size and biased media coverage. This first raised concerns over possible attempts by Trump to politicize the state-funded agency., Salon This amplified already growing propaganda concerns over the provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, signed into law by Barack Obama, which replaced the board of the Broadcasting Board of Governors with a CEO appointed by the president. Trump sent two of his political aides, Matthew Ciepielowski and Matthew Schuck, to the agency to aid its current CEO during the transition to the Trump administration. Criticism was raised over Trump's choice of aides; Schuck was a staff writer for right-wing website The Daily Surge until April 2015, while Ciepielowski was a field director at the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. VOA officials responded with assurances that they would not become "Trump TV". BBG head John F. Lansing told NPR that it would be illegal for the administration to tell VOA what to broadcast, while VOA director Amanda Bennett stressed that while "government-funded", the agency is not "government-run".On April 10, 2020, the White House published an article in its daily newsletter critical of VOA coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Emails revealed in a Freedom of Information Act request showed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention press official Michawn Rich had sent a memo to agency employees stating in part, "as a rule, do not send up requests for Greta Van Susteren or anyone affiliated with Voice of America," referencing the White House story.
On June 3, 2020, the Senate confirmed Michael Pack, a maker of conservative documentaries and close ally of Steve Bannon, to serve as head of the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Subsequently, Director Bennet and deputy director Sandy Sugawara resigned from VOA. CNN reported on June 16 that plans for a leadership shakeup at VOA were being discussed, including the possibility that controversial former White House aide Sebastian Gorka would be given a leadership role at VOA. On June 17, the heads of VOA's Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Open Technology Fund were all fired, their boards were dissolved and external communications from VOA employees made to require approval from senior agency personnel in what one source described as an "unprecedented" move, while Jeffrey Shapiro, like Pack a Bannon ally, was rumored to be in line to head the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Four former members of the advisory boards subsequently filed suit challenging Pack's standing to fire them. On July 9, NPR reported VOA would not renew the work visas of dozens of non-resident reporters, many of whom could face repercussions in their home countries.
Guo Wengui interview
On April 19, 2017, VOA interviewed the Chinese real estate tycoon Guo Wengui in a live broadcast. The whole interview was scheduled for 3 hours. After Guo Wengui alleged to own evidence of corruption among the members of the Politburo Standing Committee of China, the highest political authority of China, the interview was abruptly cut off, after only one hour and seventeen minutes of broadcasting. Guo's allegations involved Fu Zhenhua and Wang Qishan, the latter being a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and the leader of the massive anti-graft movement. It was reported that Beijing warned VOA's representatives not to interview Guo for his "unsubstantiated allegations". Four members of the U.S. Congress requested the Office of Inspector General to conduct an investigation into this interruption on August 27, 2017. The OIG investigation concluded that the decision to curtail the Guo interview was based solely on journalistic best practices rather than any pressure from the Chinese government.Another investigation, by Professor Mark Feldstein, Richard Eaton, Chair of Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a journalist with decades of experiences as an award-winning television investigative reporter, concluded that "The failure to comply with leadership’s instructions during the Guo interview “was a colossal and unprecedented violation of journalistic professionalism and broadcast industry standards.” The report also said that "There had been “a grossly negligent approach” to pre-interview vetting and failure to “corroborate the authenticity of Guo’s evidence or interview other sources” in violation of industry standards. The interview team apparently “demonstrated greater loyalty to its source than to its employer — at the expense of basic journalistic standards of accuracy, verification, and fairness," the Feldstein report concluded.