All full-time staff at the US’s biggest international broadcaster have been placed on leave after Donald Trump ordered the government-funded agency to be scaled back for being “radical” and “anti-Trump”.
The 1,300 Voice of America (VOA) employees were informed of the decision via email on Saturday, US media reported.
Staff have been blocked from accessing the broadcaster’s offices in Washington, DC, meaning freelancers and stringers worldwide have had to stop working as there is now no way to pay them, an insider told CBS News.
Michael Abramowitz, Voice of America’s director, said nearly his entire staff of journalists, producers and assistants had been suspended, crippling the broadcaster that operates in almost 50 languages.
“I am deeply saddened that for the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced,” Mr Abramowitz said on LinkedIn, adding that the broadcaster has played an important role “in the fight for freedom and democracy around the world”.
Michael Abramowitz, Voice of America’s director, said nearly his entire staff had been suspended
The US president issued a sweeping executive order on Friday gutting the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) – Voice of America’s parent agency – and several other government departments.
USAGM has also terminated its grants to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which was set up during the Cold War and continues to broadcast to countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia and Ukraine.
Radio Free Asia, which broadcasts to China and North Korea, was also targeted in the order.
A White House statement said that the order “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”.
It included a link to a report alleging that VOA reporters had posted “anti-Trump” content on social media.
VOA was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and reaches 360 million people a week. As a group, USAGM employs roughly 3,500 workers with an $886 million budget in 2024, according to its latest report to Congress.
Experts have warned that the president’s directives could devastate an organisation that is intended to be a source of reliable news in authoritarian countries.
‘Shoot straight and tell the truth’
William Gallo, VOA’s Seoul bureau chief, said on Sunday he had been locked out of all company systems and accounts.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do is shoot straight and tell the truth, no matter what government I was covering. If that’s a threat to anyone, so be it,” he said on social media.
Jan Lipavsky, the Czech foreign minister, said Radio Free Europe had been a “beacon” for populations under totalitarian rule.
“From Belarus to Iran, from Russia to Afghanistan, RFE and Voice of America are among the few free sources for people living without freedom,” he wrote on X.
Bay Fang, Radio Free Asia’s president, said the cancellation of its funding was “a reward to dictators and despots, including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked”.
However, Kari Lake, a former news anchor nominated by Mr Trump to be director of VOA, issued a statement describing USAGM as “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer” and said it was “not salvageable”.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, who has spearheaded government cuts as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, wrote on X: “While winding down this global government propaganda agency, it has temporarily been renamed the Department of Propaganda Everywhere (DOPE).”
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