In its 83-year history, a lot of people have wanted to shut down Voice of America.
The U.S. government-funded broadcaster began during World War II, broadcasting in German to provide the German people with accurate news and information. In time, the Nazis tried suppressing Voice of America by jamming its signals. Then, the communist leaders of the Soviet Union and China sought to silence it during the Cold War. The ayatollahs in Iran and the Kim family in North Korea have also sought to block out Voice of America.
Instead, the most successful attempt is now playing out in America’s own government.
Voice of America was effectively shut down earlier this month through an executive order signed by President Trump. The mission for Voice of America, or VOA, is to broadcast reliable, objective news in countries where press freedom is in short supply. Before it was silenced, Voice of America was reaching some 360 million people around the world every week, broadcasting in nearly 50 languages.
Voice of America’s history
Voice of America first hit the airwaves two months after the U.S. entered World War II. The first broadcast was in German and beamed into Germany to counter the Nazi propaganda machine.
“The news may be good or bad,” listeners in Axis-occupied Europe heard. “We shall tell you the truth.”
Soon, the Cold War provided a new opportunity to broadcast fact-based news and cultural programming to people with limited access to democratic societies. On Voice of America’s 15th anniversary, President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the broadcast to address those living behind the Iron Curtain, saying, “We want your friendships.”
As the years went by, Voice of America’s reach grew. In 1963, VOA transmitted live coverage of the March on Washington, broadcasting Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to a global audience.
“The Voice of America was very much, ‘We communicate the excitement of being an American,'” said Mark Pomar, a senior national security fellow at the University of Texas and a former director of Voice of America’s Soviet Union service.
Pomar said the broadcast was effective by promoting an understanding of the United States, no matter if the news was good or bad. Dissidents in the Soviet Union told him they learned a lot from the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, he said, which they learned about through VOA.
“The reason why that was an important part of broadcasting was because it was an important subject in the countries themselves,” Pomar said.
Voice of America’s coverage of Watergate also made a big impression on those living in the Soviet Union, Pomar recalled. The notion that a news broadcast funded by the United States would offer a critical lens on the American government was surprising.
“They were very impressed that a radio station would cover it no differently than any serious broadcasting entity would in the West,” Pomar said.
Voice of America’s straightforward reporting continued, covering American challenges, both domestic and abroad. During the Iranian hostage crisis, VOA sent news coverage into Tehran, while also using the broadcaster to try to convey Washington’s perspective of the crisis to the Iranian people.
Although VOA is funded by Congress, it follows the guidelines set by its charter, which requires its reporting to be “accurate, objective and comprehensive.” A mandated firewall prohibits government officials from influencing its editorial decisions.
This formula made VOA both a global information source and an American foreign policy tool. Up until recently, every president since VOA’s founding had supported its mission.
“VOA is probably the best bang for our buck that we have in terms of public diplomacy,” said Steve Herman, Voice of America’s chief national correspondent. “We’re the hard edge of soft power.”
Herman pointed to the ways authoritarians have tried to undermine or block VOA broadcasts over the years, including by jamming the radio signal, making it illegal to listen to or watch a VOA broadcast, blocking VOA websites with a firewall, and imprisoning VOA reporters.
“Ask yourself why,” Herman said. “If it wasn’t effective, would they be going to that extent?”
Silencing the “voice”
In February, President Trump installed Kari Lake of Arizona, a former TV anchor who lost two statewide political races, as senior advisor at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA and its sister services.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to reduce VOA’s parent agency by the maximum extent allowed by law, with the White House calling VOA “radical propaganda.” Lake then suspended VOA’s journalists and cut off transmissions, silencing the network for the first time in 83 years.
Two weeks later, a federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to dismantle VOA, for now.
Steve Herman says without the sound of America’s voice, the words, ideas, and messages from dictators will grow even louder.
“It’s an incalculable loss for us who worked there and have this mission in our blood,” Herman continued. “But for hundreds of millions of people it’s an unimaginable loss.”
The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and edited by Scott Rosann.
