Did the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act hold news broadcasters accountable for ‘lying’? That’s wrong

Three days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, President Donald Trump shared a supporter’s video pleading with him to reinstate a Cold War-era law she said punished media organizations for spreading falsehoods.

"I am hoping and praying that you will revisit what Barack Obama and Joe Biden got rid of back in 2013, which is the Smith-Mundt Act," the narrator said in a TikTok video that Trump reposted Sept. 13 on Truth Social. The supporter described the law as one that "held news corporations accountable for lying to the American people and spreading propaganda instead of truth."

The narrator urged Trump to reinstate the law and rename it the "Charlie Kirk Act." Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, seemed up to the task; on X, he posted, "In the coming days, I’ll be filing my previously drafted legislation to restore Smith-Mundt, and renaming it the Charlie Kirk Act. Domestic, political, government-funded propaganda must end now."

The Smith-Mundt Act was amended, not repealed. And it didn’t punish news corporations for their content. PolitiFact previously rated False the claim that Obama allowed the media to "purposely lie" when he signed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. That bill folded in the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which was introduced in 2012.

Claims that the Smith-Mundt Act held media "accountable for lying" mischaracterize that law, which did not apply to news content by private corporations. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act amended the law to remove a ban on government-funded broadcasters disseminating their programming to American audiences upon request from media entities and others. 

The Smith-Mundt Act, or the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, was enacted during the Cold War to enable the government to distribute information about the U.S., its people and policies to foreign audiences. The law led to the creation of the international broadcasting station Voice of America and its surrogates.

It also allowed U.S. media organization representatives to physically examine government-sponsored content at the State Department. But it prohibited the dissemination of that content to the American public.

Smith-Mundt did not apply to private news corporations.

In 2012, Democrat and Republican lawmakers co-sponsored the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which aimed to modify the existing law they called "outdated." 

"Eliminating the ban updates the law to reflect technology advances, removes a barrier to more effective and efficient public diplomacy programs, provides transparency of these programs to U.S. citizens, and allows the material to be available to inform domestic audiences," the lawmakers said in a press release.

The U.S. government’s broadcasting arm, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, included the networks Voice of America, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. In a fact page, the agency said much of its networks’ content had become available online.

"The new law will let people across America see and hear the valuable news reported by the Agency’s accomplished journalists. It takes into account modern content platforms that are not restricted by national boundaries, such as the Internet, mobile delivery and satellite broadcasting," the agency said.

The fact page clarified that under the terms of the U.S. International Broadcasting Act of 1994, the agency  "is not authorized to begin broadcasting or to create programming for audiences in the United States." The same law required U.S. international broadcasting to include news that "is consistently reliable and authoritative, accurate, objective, and comprehensive."

The Trump administration has moved to close Voice of America and other government-funded news networks; in June, it attempted to lay off almost all Voice of America staffers and support staff. These organizations said they employed strict journalistic standards and aimed to educate people in parts of the world where freedom of speech was suppressed. 

Our ruling

The narrator in a video that Trump shared said Obama eliminated a law that "held news corporations accountable for lying to the American people."

The Smith-Mundt Act that the video referred to was amended, not repealed, under Obama. It did not apply to private news corporations. It dealt with government-sponsored broadcasters and prohibited them from disseminating their materials domestically. Obama signed a law in 2013 that removed that ban, but the Smith-Mundt Act itself was not repealed. It did not punish news organizations for their content.

We rate this claim False.