An Italian version of this article was published by the same author on 21 March 2025.
Sunday 16 March marked the first time in Voice of America‘s 83-year history that its 49 language services fell silent.
The weekend will be remembered as the moment the network went dark – at least temporarily.
“I think this could be the end of it,” a United States Voice of America correspondent who was granted anonymity to speak candidly told Mediatrends.
“The organisation is preparing to launch several legal challenges that could take years. It will be a very long process and there’s a chance the network might eventually win. But by then, it may well be it will be too late to save it.”
According to the journalist, a realistic path to resuming operations could even be “waiting a Democratic victory in the 2028 presidential election.”
By that point, most of the broadcaster’s 1,300 employees and contractors are likely to have moved on – and the outlet would reopen with a skeleton staff and a credibility in tatters.
In the meantime, those same professionals have been placed on administrative leave following an executive order signed last Friday by US President Donald Trump, which cut off funding to the US Agency for Global Media, the federal body that oversees Voice of America.
Voice of America’s historic headquarters in Washington, DC. Last year, USAGM and VOA relocated to a new building at 1875 Pennsylvania Avenue, also in the capital. Photo: Flickr.
End of story
The broadcaster was created in 1942 by Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, through the establishment of the Office of Coordination of Information – a government body tasked with supervising the Office of the War Information.
It was this second agency that gave rise to Voice of America.
The network was meant to respond Axis propaganda – from Nazi German, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan – through radio-based counter-information aimed at informing populations in the occupied territories.
While the OWI was dismantled in 1946 by President Harry Truman, Voice of America continued to operate under the direction of a newly formed federal agency, the US Information Agency, from 1953 to 1999.
In the 1950s, it was joined by sister broadcasters, most notably Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which served countries in Eastern Europe under Soviet control.
In 1996, Radio Free Asia was launched. Sharing its name with a covert anti-communist propaganda programme initiated by the CIA in the early 1950s, the outlet broadcast in English, Chinese, Uighur, and Tibetan, with particular attention to the rights of minorities oppressed by Beijing’s regime.
The headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, Czech Republic. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Much like the BBC World Service, Voice of America spent over 80 years disseminating free and independent information into authoritarian states, serving as a crucial vehicle for US public diplomacy.
That refers to activities – primarily in the field of communication – aimed at promoting a positive image of a country among foreign public opinion.
Alongside traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy has long been the preferred channel for projecting soft power.
Since the aftermath of the Second World War, Voice of America has been an important voice for press freedom, capable of bringing the values of Western liberal-democracy into the homes of citizens in the Soviet Union – and later Russia, China, and Iran.
“Today, dictatorships are celebrating – from Russia to China and Cuba. In some countries, such as Iran, we are the only objective source of information,” the correspondent said.
“Voice of America has withstood the Second World War, the Cold War, the 9/11 attacks, and the Covid-19 pandemic. None of those historic events could stop its work. Trump has succeeded where cataclysms failed.”
Everybody’s out
The sudden dismantling of Voice of America will have a serious impact on the 1,300 people working for the network.
Staff is divided between contractors and federal employees.
“The contractual relationship with contractors will be terminated at the end of the month. Employees, who benefit from union protection, are currently frozen,” the journalist said. “However, the intention is to lay off almost the entire workforce.”
In an editorial published in the Columbia Journalism Review, Voice of America reporter Liam Scott wrote that “dozens of VOA staffers in Washington are on J-1 visas.”
This type of visa is reserved, among others, for foreign journalists from repressive regimes, who live in the US under government cultural exchange programmes.
For these individuals, the end of the working relationship means returning to countries where they may face prison as political opponents.
“Some colleagues have to go back to Iran, Myanmar, Indonesia, or China. They risk being imprisoned, or worse,” the correspondent said.
Besides the most dangerous cases, he added, many are likely to remain unemployed due to their age.
“One of our teammates is 60 and has a year and a half left until retirement. He told me: ‘Who’s going to hire me now? How will I make it to 62 to claim my pension?’ He’s desperate.”
US President Donald Trump during a meeting with his cabinet. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Chain of command
USAGM, the government agency established by a 1994 act of Congress and known from 1999 to 2018 as the Broadcasting Board of Governors, directly controls Voice of America – which is also formally classified as a federal entity.
Despite being private non-profit organisations, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Network also depend on USAGM for their funding.
Each year, Congress allocates the budget for these broadcasters, and the resources are managed by the agency.
Without that money – $886 million last year – none of them can survive.
As Scott pointed out, at least in theory, an executive order cannot dismantle USAGM, as it was created through legislation.
But the facts suggest otherwise. The White House has blocked financial support, effectively shutting down the networks.
Trump had already tried to influence Voice of America‘s activities back in 2020, when he appointed conservative activist and documentarian Michael Pack as CEO of USAGM.
A federal report later concluded that Pack abused his position to exert control over the broadcasters’ editorial line and punish executives who failed to carry out his directives.
During his seven-month tenures, the former CEO pursued what would later be formalised in the chapter on media agencies within Project 2025 – widely seen as an ideological blueprint for Trump’s 2024 electoral campaign: to dismantle Voice of America‘s firewall, the mechanism that guarantees its editorial independence from political interference, both from the government and USAGM’s leadership.
A graphic representation of Voice of America’s firewall. Image: Voice of America website.
If you can’t reshape them, close them
“In 2020, Trump didn’t have the determination or competence he’s shown after four years of preparation,” the reporter said.
However, he added, “both the administration and Kari Lake – nominated special advisor to USAGM – have changed their position compared to February, when they were calling for a radical reform of the network, not its demolition.”
One of the clearest attempts to shift Voice of America‘s editorial stance – which was perceived as overly critical of Trump – was the suspension of senior editor Steven Herman.
Herman was placed on “excused absence” after sharing on X a quote from the president of Democracy Forward, a non-profit organisation, who had criticised the decision to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.
Within a month, everything changed. “When they realised they couldn’t change us, they decided to silence us.”
MUST SEE: America, how do you feel about leasing a fancy Washington DC high-rise for a quarter of $1 billion?
That’s exactly what the last administration did at the US Agency for Global Media.@KariLake exposes waste & corruption, and will work to root it out.
WATCH & SHARE!… pic.twitter.com/8Zs5XhKV3I
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 14, 2025
Moves and countermoves
To justify its decision, the White House published a statement listing ten episodes intended to prove that Voice of America had become an instrument of “radical propaganda.”
The note claims that the network’s executives prevented staff from referring to Hamas and its members as “terrorists”, and that its editorial line has grown increasingly liberal in recent years.
As highlighted by The Washington Post, the allegations are either false, unfounded, or based on “ordinary” news reports interpreted in a partisan light by figures close to the administration.
Regardless of editorial motivations, in the legal battle now taking shape, USAGM and Voice of America could challenge the shutdown on the basis of potential procedural irregularities.
“The termination letter sent to the contractors contains errors,” the journalist says. “It was dispatched on 18 March but is dated 17 March, and it doesn’t comply with the 15-day notice we are guaranteed under contract.”
A core question is the legitimacy of the executive branch to overturn decisions approved by Congress on public spending – an area constitutionally reserved to the legislative authority.
Another factor to monitor, the Voice of America correspondent noted, is the role of Kari Lake and the Department of Government Efficiency.
If it were proven that the executive order had been influenced by external political pressure contrary to the editorial independence guaranteed in the VOA Charter, and that there was a lack of procedural legitimacy due to the involvement of actors without formal authority, “it would mean checkmate.”
