WASHINGTON: The Trump administration last week told lawmakers that it would further shrink the broadcasting capacity of Voice of America despite a judge’s order to maintain robust news operations at the federally funded news group, which provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedoms, said a report by The New York Times.
Kari Lake, a Trump ally who leads the broadcaster’s parent agency, wrote in a Nov. 25 notice to Congress reviewed by The New York Times that the administration intended to close its six overseas news bureaus and four overseas marketing offices, including those in Jakarta, Indonesia; Islamabad, Pakistan; Nairobi, Kenya; and Prague, Czech Republic.
The plans are part of the Trump administration’s broader, months-long effort to shutter federally funded news groups.
President Trump first moved to shut down Voice of America in March and has also targeted other broadcasters, such as Radio Free Asia.
Resistance from courts
The campaign has met resistance from courts and even from some Republican members of Congress, who believe VOA’s reporting "helps counter misinformation and propaganda campaigns from American adversaries like China and Russia," the NYT report said.
The expected closures appear to contradict a federal judge’s order from April, which required Trump officials to resume operations at VOA so that it would “fulfill its statutory mandate” to serve “as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”
But even after the court ruling, Lake moved to lay off more journalists and kept most of VOA’s news programming off the air, irking Judge Royce C Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, who threatened to hold her in contempt.
Lake argued to lawmakers that the demands of covering breaking news could be handled by contractors when needed.
“None of the closures reduce VOA’s ability to provide authoritative, independent journalism,” Lake said in a statement. “They are strategically chosen redundancies to save over $30 million in taxpayer dollars.”
Lake added that planned closures “are not reductions in service,” since Voice of America would “remain responsive to geopolitical events and developments across the globe.”
‘Another nail in the coffin’
But Patsy Widakuswara, who led Voice of America’s White House coverage until March and has joined other employees in suing the administration, said the planned office closures were “another nail in the coffin” for the broadcaster, according to the news report.
The offices coordinated with local news stations so that Voice of America’s content featured in their programming through partnerships, said Kate Neeper, a director of strategy at VOA’s parent agency who was put on paid leave and joined the lawsuit.
Voice of America reached 360 million people every week in 49 languages until March.
Former VOA reporters pointed out that news services often took weeks or even months to start, and said that Voice of America could not cover news with only contractors.
Widakuswara said Lake’s proposal to use contractors was akin to “hiring meteorologists only when it rains.”
The notice to Congress, addressed to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the Trump administration would also shutter many of the long-distance radio stations that Voice of America and other federally funded news groups had used to counter government censorship.
The six transmitting stations expected to close by the end of the year are in Germany, Thailand, Botswana, and Djibouti.
Ceding ground to Russia, China
Trump’s efforts to dismantle Voice of America and other federally funded news groups have raised concerns that the United States is ceding ground to Russian and Chinese propaganda networks that have moved aggressively to fill the vacuum, according to the NYT.
Before Voice of America pulled back most of its news production, foreign TV news stations that had partnerships with VOA aired its content, including coverage of the White House and Congress.
But many of those networks now rely on Chinese and Russian state-sponsored media.
The Chinese-language service for Metro TV in Indonesia, for example, now features only content from CGTN, a Chinese state broadcaster, rather than incorporating material from Voice of America, Widakuswara said.
“Shuttering VOA news bureaus and US transmission stations is a win for Putin, Xi, and dictators around the world,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, referring to President Vladimir V Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, China’s leader.
US credibility on the line
She added: “These closures would severely undermine US credibility abroad, weaken our ability to counter disinformation and silence independent reporting in regions where reliable information is already under threat.”
The newspaper report said that the two US adversaries each spend billions of dollars a year to disseminate content favorable to their governments, including disinformation, according to a recent State Department assessment. US-funded newsrooms received around $850 million in 2024, including $260 million for Voice of America.
Last month, Congress reauthorized a similar level of funding for federally funded news groups through the end of January, The New York Times reported.
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