Why China’s Firewall Needs to Be Knocked Down: Michael Pack

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This is the 30 minute TV version of Jan Jekielek’s interview with Michael Pack. The longer-form version was released on Epoch TV on February 4, 2025.

🔴 Watch the extended version of this episode: https://ept.ms/Y0204MichaelPack

Michael Pack is a documentary filmmaker and the president of Palladium Pictures. During Donald Trump’s first presidency, he led the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees America’s state-funded news networks, including Voice of America.

Jan Jekielek talks to Michael about China’s Great Firewall, the future of media and his recent films.

Michael Pack: “China spent a huge amount of money building up their firewall, and it’s a unified concerted effort. And the US government should have a unified concerted effort to circumvent that firewall.”

“We could do nothing better, really, than to knock [China’s internet] firewall down. I think if people in China had a chance to hear the range of ideas out there, it would change the country more than almost anything else. And it’s not expensive,” he says.

CHAPTER TITLES
0:00:01 – The Left’s Investment in Culture
0:00:11 – Michael Pack’s Background and Role at USAGM
0:00:26 – The Mission and Budget of USAGM
0:00:41 – Promoting American Ideas and Values Abroad
0:00:51 – Discussing Changes in Media Bias
0:01:38 – Addressing Bias Within USAGM
0:02:27 – The Challenge of Fixing USAGM’s Bias
0:02:39 – Potential Shifts in Media Bias
0:03:20 – Concerns About USAGM’s Bias
0:03:33 – The Importance of Adhering to USAGM’s Charter
0:05:18 – Addressing Accusations of USAGM as a Propaganda Agency
0:05:31 – The Objectivity of USAGM’s Reporting
0:06:00 – Potential Cuts and Consolidation of USAGM
0:06:50 – The Importance of Circumventing Internet Firewalls
0:07:02 – Coordinating a Unified Effort to Circumvent Firewalls
0:08:59 – Public Diplomacy as a Soft Power Approach
0:09:10 – The Non-Aggressive Nature of Circumvention Efforts
0:10:00 – Leveraging Soft Power More Effectively
0:10:11 – Michael Pack’s Filmmaking Career
0:10:39 – Palladium Pictures and Its Three Pillars
0:12:14 – The 1991 Crown Heights Riot
0:15:48 – The Importance of the Crown Heights Film
0:16:04 – Balancing Perspectives in Documentary Filmmaking
0:18:40 – Reaching the Middle Ground with Documentaries
0:19:42 – The Need for More Conservative Documentaries
0:20:03 – Palladium Pictures’ Filmmaker Incubator Program
0:24:00 – Final Thoughts and Encouragement for New Media

About the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM): “Its budget is something like $900 million,” he says. “It’s only a mid-sized government agency, but it’s one of the largest broadcasters in the world. They’re broadcasting over 70 languages to hundreds of millions of people a week. So it’s really a potent tool, and it’s designed to promote American ideas and values abroad.”

Michael Pack about the leftwing bias of USAGM’s media organizations: “So far, President Trump has only appointed Carrie Lake for the Voice of America, but they will have a challenge. These organizations became very biased over the years, very anti Trump for one thing, but very biased and often sympathetic to the very governments they’re supposed to be critical of. One example, the notorious recent example, is the VOA. Voice of America refused to label Hamas a terrorist organization for a while. They put terrorists in quotes, and then under further pressure, they finally called it a terrorist organization. But this was a time when CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times called Hamas a terrorist organization. So this is an instance of the VOA being loosely speaking to the left, even of legacy media, so that suggests it’s a symptom of a very deep bias that will be the job of Kari Lake and others to try to fix.”

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