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FY 2020 Performance and Accountability Report Message from the U.S

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FY 2020 Performance and Accountability Report Message from the U.S FY 2020 Performance and Accountability Report Message from the U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) presents the Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 here. This report contains the results of this year’s audit of the agency’s financial statements, measures performance against FY 2020 objectives, highlights the accomplishments of the past year, and identifies future challenges. The inaugural Senate-confirmed CEO and senior leadership commenced assessment of USAGM to initially determine the current state of the agency’s performance relative to statutory requirements, legislative intent, and administration policy at the beginning of the fourth quarter of FY 2020. The overwhelming majority of this report features the activity and self-assessments of the prior agency leadership, which was under the bygone Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) structure. The new CEO structure marks a crucial change in how USAGM is governed, managed, and will operate in the future. This report highlights two core areas: 1) USAGM’s prior success and how the agency assessed itself under the BBG; and 2) USAGM’s on-going assessment and concerns regarding the agency’s approach to achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, compliance with statute and regulations governing Executive Branch agencies, and the effectiveness of agency operations. The mission of USAGM is to advance U.S. foreign policy by informing, engaging, and connecting people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. The agency executes this mission through five broadcasting networks that it oversees and manages. Two of those networks are federal entities – the Voice of America (VOA) and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) – while three are USAGM-funded grantees – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN). USAGM’s five networks provide international audiences with content on television, radio, internet, and social and mobile platforms. With access to media expanding in many parts of the world, information is more powerful than ever. Regardless, significant challenges to press freedom remain. Well-funded state and non-state actors are inundating certain audiences with disinformation about current affairs to the severe detriment of the U.S. national interest. They are also employing technology to restrict people’s access to the internet and to prevent USAGM from reaching its audiences. In FY 2020, the news and information programming of USAGM’s five networks together reached a worldwide, weekly audience of 354 million people in 62 languages, an increase of four million from last year’s record audience. This audience growth largely occurred in several markets, including Iraq, Ukraine, Venezuela, Morocco, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. USAGM continued to reach large audiences in countries of key U.S. national security interest, including Russia, China, and Iran. USAGM’s journalists work to report the truth to people who need it the most. The agency endeavors to counter disinformation and propaganda with accurate reporting on local in-country issues from politics to economics to entertainment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, record numbers tuned into the agency’s networks at a time when foreign governments were manufacturing disinformation and propaganda. Following opening evaluations of USAGM’s profound, well-documented, and longstanding issues – from personnel national security failures to bias in reporting – senior leadership began taking immediate remedial action. Multiple Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Inspector General (IG) findings were identified whose recommendations were either superficially addressed or left unaddressed by prior agency leadership. A number of in-depth assessments of the agency’s security were conducted by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a decade. They revealed severe and systemic security failures, a number of which had persisted since 2010. In response to this U.S. national security concern, senior leadership is addressing both the short- and long-term corrections necessary to remedy the failures. First, USAGM senior leadership has taken steps necessary to begin validating the national security access suitability determinations and security clearance adjudications invalidly granted to over 1,500 agency personnel between 2010 and 2020. Further, USAGM senior leadership is working methodically on the systemic, institutional corrections necessary to restore the agency’s information 2 U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA | FY 2020 PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT and personnel security posture so that its delegated authorities might eventually be restored. Regarding the personnel issues, current senior leadership reviewed the prior agency leadership’s attempts and efforts to address the multiple GAO findings for USAGM. Prior agency leadership failed to adequately address GAO findings through process, personnel training, and management practices. While acknowledging failure to address and adequately make progress on these findings in the past, current USAGM senior leadership must move forward to resolve them as soon as possible. It must be resolute in its responsibility to exert good governance and to meet or, ideally, exceed the high standards demanded of every agency by the American people. USAGM’s senior leadership will inform Congress of its action plans moving forward as it works to bring the agency into statutory and regulatory compliance. In FY 2021, USAGM is improving its program review process to ensure that its networks serve their audiences and the U.S. national interest pursuant to the U.S. International Broadcasting Act of 1994. The agency will address the need for rigorous, periodic evaluation of all language services and content, hewing to the requirement to be “consistently reliable and authoritative, accurate, objective, and comprehensive.” USAGM is further working to ensure that content and programming are marked by “fairness, objectivity and balance.” The program review process will enable the agency and its networks to better promote journalistic best practices, advance U.S. foreign policy across all platforms, and enforce internal standards that prohibit biased and partisan reporting. The financial and performance data presented in this report are fundamentally complete and reliable. USAGM is pleased that the independent auditors have again given the agency’s financial statements an unmodified opinion. Still, USAGM recognizes that there are a number of significant items identified by the external audit that will require continued attention and diligent improvement. Given the wide range of issues raised by GAO and various IGs, Congress was wise to restructure the civilian U.S. international broadcasting. It transitioned the agency from the part-time, nine-member BBG to the more accountable and action-focused CEO structure—a leadership structure far more closely aligned to that of other executive branch agencies. U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA | FY 2020 PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT 3 USAGM personnel have undertaken significant efforts to reach audiences worldwide. The agency will leverage its talent in FY 2021 to address the performance and operations issues that are now known. It will develop plans to address them and, further, implement changes. USAGM will strive to effectively and efficiently steward U.S.-taxpayer resources in order to further our mission of impacting international audiences in service to the U.S. national interest. Michael Pack Chief Executive Officer November 16, 2020 4 U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA | FY 2020 PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 7 Section 1: Management’s Discussion and Analysis ..................................................................... 9 Organizational Structure and Mission ......................................................................... 10 FY 2020 Goals and Objectives ......................................................................................... 13 Performance Highlights .................................................................................................... 14 Ongoing Challenges ............................................................................................................ 18 Financial Highlights ............................................................................................................ 23 Management Assurances .................................................................................................. 25 Section 2: Performance Information ......................................................................................... 29 FY 2020 Goals, Objectives, and Results ........................................................................ 30 Impact Objectives Impact Objective 1: Produce and curate journalism and other content of exceptional value that informs and engages audiences and expands the media marketplace ..................................................................................................... 33 Impact Objective 2: Reach and engage audiences in key strategic areas including the information-denied, underserved and targets of disinformation and extremist rhetoric ................................................................................................
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