For more than 80 years, Voice of America has brought the news to the nation. Many of them were authoritarians, and reliable sources of information about the outside world were often difficult.
Now, these broadcasts are flickering, although we have long seen them as an important part of our efforts to promote democracy and transparency abroad.
Hours after President Trump signed an executive order Friday to dismantle the federal agency overseeing the US voice, hundreds of journalists, executives and other employees at Washington's organizational headquarters were informed that they were on paid leave. Employees said they quickly lost access to work emails and other communication programs.
Much of the Voice of America content is produced in Washington and then sent to a network of affiliates around the world. With the majority of Voice of America's workforce being locked out, employees said that at least some of the radio frequencies in Asia and the Middle East have started to darken or start broadcasting other than music.
Otherwise, radio, television and digital outlets using Voice of America programming will remain online, but have no contributions from the US. Some of these affiliates also have content provided by national media from countries such as Russia and China.
“They manipulated the plug and pulled it,” said David K. Seid, a lawyer for the Government Accountability Project, defending federal whistleblowers and representing American journalists.
Sade said he is considering legal challenges aimed at reviving the voices of American journalists. The American Foreign Office Association, which includes ranks that include employees of Voice of America, said it would “prove intense defenses” of those employees.
The Trump administration's efforts to shut down American voices are part of a broader campaign to undermine news media. For example, the White House has banned the Associated Press from covering certain events by refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the US Gulf. Trump and his allies are suing the press, and his allies say they are paying attention to more lawsuits.
Voice of America began airing in 1942, part of the federal government's efforts during World War II to combat Nazi propaganda in Latin America and elsewhere. During the Cold War, the shortwave radio broadcasts behind the Iron Curtains were part of the US government's campaign to counter communism and cultivate freedom. Until at least this weekend, Voice of America reported in dozens of languages, reaching hundreds of millions of listeners, including countries like China and Iran, and the government imposed strict control over external news sources.
The Voice of America Charter is designed to protect editorial independence, even when the administration is in power. Its mission is to present a “balanced and comprehensive” portrait of America as a reliable source of news, and to “show US policies clearly and effectively.”
In Trump's first term, the White House repeatedly defeated what was considered a voice of liberal bias in America. The administration's efforts to match Trump's agenda with taxpayer-funded broadcasters, including conducting internal investigations of some journalists, were later deemed inappropriate by federal agents.
This year, Trump moved quickly to keep the station quiet. He tapped Lake Kali, a former TV news anchor on the right wing, to run the voice of America. Even before she arrived, the station began to discourage journalists from saying or writing things that could be interpreted as critical of Mr. Trump.
On Saturday, the White House issued a news release denounced the role of a broadcaster who spread “radical propaganda” and accused employees of entrenching left-wing bias. It's the same critique that Trump and his allies make about traditional media on a daily basis.
Longtime US correspondent voice Stephen Herman was placed in an extended “false exemption” this month, waiting to investigate human resources for social media posts about the Trump administration. On Saturday he published what he described as a “requiem” on the station.
“To effectively shut down the American voice is to darken the beacons that were burning brightly during the darkest times since 1942,” Herman wrote.
