A Statement from VOA Director Amanda Bennett

One of the big differences between publicly-funded independent media, like the Voice of America, and state-controlled media is that we are free to show all sides of an issue and are actually mandated to do so by law as stated in the VOA Charter signed by President Gerald Ford in 1976. We are thoroughly covering China's dis-information and misinformation in English and Mandarin and at the same time reporting factually – as we always do in all 47 of our broadcast languages - on other events in China. Unlike China, VOA has stuck to verifiable facts, including publishing numerous articles in Mandarin, English and other languages that outed China’s initial secrecy keeping information of the initial outbreak from the world. VOA has thoroughly debunked much of the information coming from the Chinese government and government-controlled media. Our coverage includes a fact-check of the Chinese government’s false timeline of its COVID-19 response, its misleading count that excluded asymptomatic cases, China’s underestimate of the number of deaths in Wuhan and its use of Twitter to further its narrative internationally -- a platform the Chinese government has banned domestically. VOA has literally carried hundreds of stories on China’s response and narrative.