VOA Amharic is a visceral war time propaganda outlet. Activists from Oromo, Tigrayan, Somali, Gumuz and other ethnic groups have routinely decried the misreporting of the Amharic service. Consider these examples. In November 2019, Ethiopia’s current Defense Minister Lemma Magarsa and a former key ally of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gave a rare interview to the Afaan Oromo service. He expressed serious reservations over Abiy’s rush to dissolve the EPRDF coalition. VOA unsuccessfully tried hard to hold the interview ostensibly because the editors did not like Lemma’s criticism of the Prime Minister. The Amharic service’s biased coverage of the unrest in Ethiopia that followed the killing of Haacaaluu is also notable. On July 6, Tsion Girma, Tizita’s mentee, aired a long ‘exposé’ about violence against ethnic minorities in Oromia state. The report was peculiar for several reasons. First, it was unprecedented for its length, at 24-minutes on an hour-long daily program. In recent memory, the Amharic service has not dedicated so much airtime to a single story so badly sourced. Second, the report featured interviews with three victims from the same family. Third, the story painted a misleading picture of a communal violence whereby only one ethnic group, the Amhara, was targeted for killing. To subtly demonstrate this, Tsion spoke mainly to victims who self-identified as Amharas. VOA Amharic has also described rallies in DC and the rest of America using biased terms. When Amharas come out carrying the Amhara regional flag accompained by Eritreans in a rally supporting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, VOA Amharic describes the rallie partipants as Ethiopians, Eritreans and Ethiopians by birth. When Tegarus and Oromos come out on rallies opposing Abiy Ahmed, VOA Amharic describes Tegarus by birth and Oromos by birth participated in the rallies.

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