(a) A statutory `firewall,' provided for in section 305(b) of the IBA, and incident to adherence to the highest professional standards of broadcast journalism, exists around USAGM-funded networks, their products, and staff in order to protect their professional independence and integrity.

(b) Within any credible news organization, a firewall exists between anybody involved with any aspect of journalism (e.g., the creation, editing, reporting, distributing, etc., of content) and everyone else in the organization. For purposes of USAGM, firewalls exist between the newsroom of a USAGM-network; everyone else in the organization; and the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, as described herein.

(c) This “firewall” is understood to be violated when any person within the Executive Branch or a Network, but outside the newsroom, attempts to direct, pressure, coerce, threaten, interfere with, or otherwise impermissibly influence any of the USAGM networks, including their leadership, officers, employees, or staff, in the performance of their journalistic and broadcasting duties and activities. It is also violated when someone inside the newsroom acts in furtherance of or pursuant to such impermissible influence. Such impermissible influence would undermine the journalistic and editorial independence, and thus the credibility, of that USAGM network, and their reporters, editors, or other journalists.

(d) The firewall is critical to ensuring that the editors, reporters, and other journalists of the USAGM network make the decisions on what stories to cover and how they are covered, and that those decisions are ultimately governed by the highest standards of professional journalism.

(e) The following are not firewall violations:

(1) The firewall is not meant to discourage journalists from interviewing U.S. Government officials or to discourage such officials from appearing on USAGM-funded programs.

(2) The firewall does not prevent officers or employees within the Executive Branch, including the State Department, from engaging with or speaking about USAGM networks as they might with any other news organization. Such interaction could include but is not limited to:

(i) Publicly or privately commenting on USAGM stories;

(ii) Publicly or privately reaching out to journalists in the same manner that they would do with any other journalist;

(iii) Publicly or privately reaching out to network staff in the same manner that they would do with any other network staff; and

(iv) Otherwise interacting with journalists and other network staff in the same manner that they would do with such staffs' private sector counterparts.

(3) The firewall does not prevent a USAGM CEO or Board from undertaking the same type of direction and oversight that those in equivalent leadership positions in an organization overseeing other reputable news organizations may provide, in a manner consistent with the highest standards of professional journalism.

(4) In determining which languages to broadcast, the Agency has prioritized certain countries and audiences, such as those under authoritarian rule. The firewall does not prevent the USAGM CEO or Board from otherwise prioritizing certain audiences or languages, consistent with the statutory language service review that is carried out per section 305(a)(4) of the IBA to determine whether the continued broadcasting in various languages are furthering the mission of the networks, and per section 303(a)(1) of the IBA, are thus consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States.

(5) Per section 303(b)(3) of the IBA, the firewall does not prohibit the publication of editorials and other opinion pieces by U.S. Government officials, marked clearly as such, on VOA, expressing policy positions of the U.S. Government.