President Donald Trump on Monday dispatched two aides to scope out the studios of Voice of America, heightening concerns among some longtime staffers that Trump may quickly put his stamp on the broadcasting arm that has long pushed U.S. democratic ideals across the world. The arrival of the two aides [...] comes after Voice of America received blowback over the weekend for sending out a series of tweets about White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s claims about inauguration crowd size that looked to some like an endorsement of his false statements.

U.S. President Barack Obama has approved legislation that would consolidate oversight of U.S. nonmilitary broadcasting in the hands of a single chief executive, an overhaul that supporters laud as a much-needed reform but critics warn could endanger journalistic independence. The legislation [...] restructures the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)

Russian-sponsored rants about America get airtime in America, while U.S.-underwritten attempts to fairly and honestly inform Russians are massively curtailed. That’s not an uneven playing field; that’s our adversary owning the field and using America’s own liberality to attack U.S. policies and discredit Western values. The new administration needs to push back.

Beginning Saturday, the BBC World Service is trying something new. Or, at least, newer. A new weekly radio and digital program, "World Hacks," will look at the problems facing the world along with the people who are trying to fix them. [...] Instead, "World Hacks" focuses on those problems and their solutions.

President Rouhani touched upon critical issues of the press and the crackdown targeting the ‘mouths and pens’ based on unfounded evidence; he believed that the media’s foremost responsibility was to promote peace of mind for the public, since “in a society of severe perturbation and tumult, terrorism and extremism would find favorable grounds to be fostered

The training program [...] is not the first international project at top Chinese journalism schools. Since 2014, the School of Journalism and Communication at Renmin University of China has trained at least 10 journalists from African media each year in an exchange program organized by the China-Africa Press Center. This year, the program has received 28 African journalists, the largest group yet.