President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday placed the Voice of America and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, suddenly decades old outlets were seen as important to combat Russian and Chinese information crimes for a long time.
Hundreds of employees in VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email, stating that they would be stopped from their offices and should surrender the press pass and office-related equipment.
Trump, who has already removed the US Global Aid Agency and the Department of Education, on Friday issued an executive order to the American agency for the global media “among the elements of the federal bureaucracy, which the President has determined that he is unnecessary.”
Firebrand Trump supporter Kari Lake kept the in -charge of the media agency after losing the bid of the US Senate, stating the outlets in an email that the federal grant “no longer affects the priorities of the agency.”
The White House stated that the deduction would ensure that “taxpayers are no longer on hooks for fundamentalist propagation,” marking a dramatic tone shift to the established network to expand American influence abroad.
White House Press officer Harrison Fields wrote “goodbye” on X in 20 languages, a jab in the multilingual coverage of outlets.
VOA Director Michael Abramovitz said he was one of the 1,300 employees on Saturday.
“VOA needs thoughtful reform, and we have progressed in that regard. But today’s action will be unable to carry out its important mission to Voice of America,” he said on Facebook, seeing that its coverage – in 48 languages ​​- in 48 languages ​​- reaches 360 million people each week.
The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which began broadcasting in the Soviet block during the Cold War, called “a major gift for the enemies of the US” to cancel funding.
Its president Stephen Capus said in a statement, “Iranian Ayatollah, Chinese communist leaders and Autocrats in Moscow and Minsk will celebrate the death of RFE/RL after 75 years.”
Sensor -Riporting
The US-funded media has rebuilt itself since the end of the Cold War, which has been focusing on Russia and China, leaving the programming towards the new Democratic Central and Eastern European countries.
The media funded by the Chinese state has expanded its reach rapidly over the last decade, including offering free services to outlets in the developing world that will otherwise pay for Western news agencies.
Radio Free Asia, established in 1996, sees its mission as providing sensor reporting in countries without free media including China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam.
The outlets have an editorial firewall, which guarantees freedom despite government funds.
This policy has become some angered around Trump, who have published a long time against the media and suggested that the outlets funded by the government should promote their policies.
The steps to eliminate the US-funded media are likely to meet the challenges, like Trump’s other comprehensive cuts. The Congress is not the President, not the President, and the constitutional power of Radio -free Asia, especially enjoying bipartisan support in the past.
‘chaos’
The advocacy group reporters condemned the decision without any limit, saying that “the press threatens freedom worldwide and rejects the 80 -year American history in supporting the free flow of information.”
The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat Gregory Mikes, and Senior Democratic Congress Voman Lois Frankel said in a joint statement that “American efforts would be a permanent loss to compete around the world.”
A VOA employee, who requested oblivion, described the message of Saturday as “another ideal example of chaos and the unprotected nature of the process”, assuming VOA employees assuming that the scheduled programming is closed, but not stated directly.
An employee from a radio -free Asia said: “This is not just about losing your income. We have employees and contractors who are afraid of their safety.
“It is just terrible to wipe us with a pen strike.”
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
