Author: Valerie A. Cooper, Lecturer in Media and Communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Of all the contradictions and ironies of Donald Trump’s second presidency so far, perhaps the most surprising has been his shutting down the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for being “radical propaganda”. Critics have long accused the agency – and its affiliated outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia – of being a propaganda arm of US foreign policy. But to the current president, the USAGM has become a promoter of anti-American ideas and agendas – including allegedly suppressing stories critical of Iran, sympathetically covering the issue of “white privilege” and bowing to…