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Don Moynihan
@donmoyn.bsky.social
Policy Professor, Ford School, University of Michigan. Irish immigrant. Administrative burdens guy. Free newsletter, Can We Still Govern?: donmoynihan.substack.com
26.4k followers983 following5.2k posts
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Michael Pack, an ally of Steve Bannon, was appointed late in the Trump admin to run AGM. He promised to to "drain the swamp, to root out corruption, and to deal with these issues of bias." He was driven by the MAGA assumption that journalists were unfair to Trump. Here is a sample of what he did:

The scale of Pack’s abuses only became evident after he left the agency. He profiled his employees, speculating on their political leanings, and met with officials to prioritize which of these officials should be fired because of those political beliefs. He pushed out senior officials, putting some on administrative leave for daring to disagree with him. Pack hired a conservative law firm on a no-bid contract to investigate his own employees. It cost $1.6 million dollars. He revoked security clearances from journalists who complained about his practices. He sought to put in place unqualified appointees to oversee overseas media networks, and make their tenure permanent. His political appointees either had no experience in journalism, or were aligned with right-wing media outlets such as The Daily Caller.
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Having a partisan hack define what constitutes good journalism is no different than having a partisan hack tell scientists what the science on climate change or vaccines should be. This is how politicization undermines the core mission of the public organizations. open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

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DM
Don Moynihan
@donmoyn.bsky.social
Policy Professor, Ford School, University of Michigan. Irish immigrant. Administrative burdens guy. Free newsletter, Can We Still Govern?: donmoynihan.substack.com
26.4k followers983 following5.2k posts