Trump’s Gutting of VOA Puts Journalists in the Crosshairs
They’re not just losing their jobs — their lives are on the line.
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
Among the many important agencies President Trump has recently gutted is Voice of America (VOA), a government-funded media outlet created in 1942 to oppose Nazi propaganda. Trump has also withdrawn funding from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA). This troubling clampdown on the press has consequences not just for audiences, but for the journalists employed by the outlets — and it goes beyond them simply losing their jobs.
RFE/RL was founded around 1950 and broadcasts in 23 languages in 27 countries. Founded in 1994, RFA specializes in “delivering reliable, uncensored news and providing an open forum for citizens in Asian countries that restrict media, free press and free speech,” according to its Twitter account. VOA reaches more than 361 million listeners weekly in 49 languages.
Altogether, these outlets have been a lifeline in countries where governments suppress the media — where propaganda passes as news and news itself is regularly censored.
Despite receiving U.S. government funding, they produce independent journalism. Together, VOA, RFE/RL and RFA unearth corruption and offer perspectives that often differ from the local government line. VOA — the largest of the three outlets, which are all overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) — was created with a charter that demands that its reporting be “accurate, objective, and comprehensive.” It is also subject to the 1994 U.S. International Broadcasting Act, which prohibits the government from interfering with editorial independence.
With Trump’s actions, the world is not only losing valuable media outlets that reach news-starved audiences, it is also losing outlets that reach news-deprived audiences in media-rich countries, giving us a look at underreported stories in places we may not hear about otherwise.
But there is yet another terrible aspect of Trump’s move that is being highlighted this week by 37 human rights organizations in a letter to Congress: The journalists who have worked for VOA, RFE/RL and RFA both at home and abroad, are now at “grave risk of harassment, threats, and even imprisonment due to their association with these independent media outlets.” Among the signatories to the letter are groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN America and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“This suffocation of independent media is already putting the lives of journalists — who have often withstood enormous challenges to bring news to millions living in censored countries — in grave danger,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
Employees of the outlets are losing their work status, which means they may face deportation under Trump’s new draconian rules — deportation back to countries where they will face persecution for the journalism they have done in service of the U.S.
Because they have reported on politically sensitive issues in their home countries, the letter reads, “with the defunding of USAGM, they now face an uncertain future, grappling with the loss of work status as well as prolonged delays in immigration processes. Others remain trapped in countries where their association with USAGM-funded entities makes them targets of state repression.”
As the authors of the letter put it: “The stakes could not be higher.”
Journalists sent back to their countries of origin are likely to face “extreme consequences,” the signatories say, including being imprisoned. They note this because, of the 361 journalists imprisoned around the world at the end of 2024, 11 were from USAGM-funded outlets. There are, they write, at least 15 journalists from RFA and eight from VOA who are at “serious risk” of being immediately arrested upon arrival in their home countries. The coalition deems another 84 as being at risk of “other adverse consequences.” The countries where journalists are most likely to be in serious danger are Belarus, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Russia and Vietnam.
“Ensuring journalists’ safety is a moral imperative but it also sends a strong signal about the United States’ resolve to defend the principles of democracy and free expression,” the coalition writes.
Perhaps, though, not guaranteeing the safety or inviolability of the press is the message Trump has been trying to send all along. As RFA President and CEO Bay Fang put it, the termination of the outlet’s funding is “a reward to dictators and despots.”
Trump is likely waiting with bated breath for a phone call from Putin right about now.
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Of course this is a gift from Trump to Putin and other dictators. Accurate and in depth reporting to their population is the last thing an authoritarian wants. Going after the media and the universities is high up on the flow chart of getting rid of educated and informed citizens.