Trump silencing VOA threatens free media in repressive countries, advocates say
President Donald Trump's order to cut off funding to Voice of America (VOA) and several other affiliated pro-democracy media outlets has drawn widespread criticism from press freedom organizations and journalists, who warn it risks severely damaging independent journalism covering some of the world's most repressive countries.
Trump announced an executive order late Friday to effectively dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which supervises VOA. Following the order, the head of VOA said all of its 1,300 journalists and staff had been put on administrative leave.
Trump’s executive order also terminated grants for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, which broadcast news to Eastern Europe, Russia, China and North Korea and Central Asia.
The order threatens to close down media organizations that for decades have provided independent news coverage and promoted journalism to hundreds of millions of people worldwide and provided an information lifeline to people living in countries under authoritarian regimes, advocates say.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a prominent press freedom organization, called the move a “reward to dictators and despots” and urged Congress to act to preserve the media outlets.
VOA and the other media organizations were founded during World War II to promote democracy and provide uncensored information. But even after the end of the Cold War, in many authoritarian and poor countries, they have continued to play a powerful role as independent news providers, sometimes as the only open media where all others are censored or severely under-resourced, such as Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan and North Korea.
VOA and its affiliates reach 420 million people in 63 languages and more than 100 countries each week, according to the U.S. Agency for Global Media. VOA and RFE/RL’s reporting has been routinely deemed a threat by authoritarian regimes, which have sought to pressure them, including by jailing their journalists.
Ten journalists and contributors of the VOA, RFE, and RFA are currently either imprisoned or missing in different countries across the world, according to the USAGM website.
In Russia and much of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, RFE/RL reporters have played an outsized role in covering political repression and sometimes breaking major corruption investigations. They employ hundreds of local journalists, reporting in both English and the local language.
VOA's Persian department broadcasts television news programs in Iran and operates a news website. RFE/RL's Persian Service, Radio Farda, also produces news and analysis in audio and video formats and runs a news website.
“Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian journalists have faced intense suppression, censorship, imprisonment, and even execution at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran leaving Iranian people with almost no access to free media platforms inside the country," a UK-based Iranian journalist told ABC News.
“Shutting down outlets like VOA Persian, Radio Liberty, and Radio Farda would deal a major blow to press freedom and the free flow of information in Iran, directly serving the interests of the Islamic Republic,” the journalist, who asked not to be named for security reasons, added.
In a statement published on his LinkedIn Sunday, Michael Abramowitz, Voice of America's director, said, “For the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced.”
“VOA promotes freedom and democracy around the world by telling America’s story and by providing objective and balanced news and information, especially for those living under tyranny,” he added.
But Trump and his allies have attacked VOA as corrupt and promoting values alien to the United States. Trump, in his first term, accused the organizations of speaking for “America’s adversaries – not its citizens”.
The White House in a statement Saturday said the order “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”
The Trump administration has also framed the gutting of VOA as part of the drastic effort to cut down the federal budget being led by Elon Musk. Musk last month wrote the USGM outlets are “just radical crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1bn/year of US taxpayer money.”
Kari Lake, failed Senate candidate for Arizona, who Trump had tapped to oversee VOA and had promised to overhaul it, on Saturday wrote the agency was “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer,” calling it “unsalvageable."
European leaders on Monday expressed dismay at the cutting of funds to RFE/RL, with some suggesting they were exploring ways to partially fill the gap.
The Czech Republic's foreign minister, Jan Lipavsky, said RFE/RL, which is based in Prague, "is one of the few credible sources in dictatorships like Iran, Belarus, and Afghanistan."
He said he would raise the issue with his fellow European Union foreign ministers on Tuesday about how to help the outlet to keep at least partially broadcasting.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski confirmed that the EU is considering options to help RFE/RL, according to the Kyiv Independent.
"We are at the stage of brainstorming, but clearly, these are worthy institutions whose mission should continue," Sikorski told the website.
