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\u201cToday, and daily from now on, we shall speak to you about America and the war,\u201d proclaimed<\/a> announcer William Harlan Hale during the Voice of America\u2019s (VOA) first broadcast on February 1, 1942. \u201cThe news may be good for us. The news may be bad. But we shall tell you the truth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n VOA was officially established to counter Nazi propaganda<\/a> and provide accurate and unbiased news on international affairs to foreign populations during World War II. Now, President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are seeking to end the network\u2019s funding, silence its broadcasters and reporters, and pull the plug on the eighty-three-year-old service.\u00a0<\/p>\n On March 14, Trump signed an Executive Order<\/a> to gut the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees the VOA as well as Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Radio Free Asia. Nearly all<\/a> agency employees were placed on administrative leave as a result of the order, ending their global coverage for an estimated<\/a> 427 million listeners, viewers, and web users. More than 1,300 staffers at the VOA were locked out<\/a> of company computer systems and facilities, and barred from reporting the news.<\/p>\n On March 21, VOA journalists, federal workers, and unions filed<\/a> a lawsuit, Widakuswara v. Lake,<\/em> against USAGM, USAGM Acting Director Victor Morales, and the agency\u2019s special adviser Kari Lake for unlawfully dismantling the federally funded media agency, alleging that their actions overstepped their authority and breached the editorial independence of USAGM journalists. Despite reducing the USAGM\u2019s scope and operations\u00a0 through an Executive Order<\/a> in March, the agency still continued operations, with Lake leading its charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur purpose with the legal action is to make sure that we get to go back to work, that nobody is fired, and that the transmitters and the satellite TV transponders can turn back on and we can resume programming,\u201d says Steve Herman, VOA\u2019s chief national correspondent and a spokesperson for the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), a plaintiff in the lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n In April, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted<\/a> a preliminary injunction in Widakuswara v. Lake<\/em>, affirming that the USAGM entities were unlawfully shuttered and ordering the Trump Administration to return VOA employees and contractors to work. Yet in early May, an appeals court paused<\/a> these back-to-work orders, leaving the fate of programming and employee jobs up in the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite ongoing legal battles, Lake has said news content will be provided \u201cfree of charge\u201d by the One America News Network (OAN), an independent, pro-Trump, rightwing television news channel and website. Since its inception in 2013, the network\u2019s reporting has bolstered a range of MAGA talking points, including lies about the results of the 2020 election<\/a>. OAN has promoted<\/a> conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic, denied climate change, and elevated problematic leaders within the Republican Party, including former Representative Matt Gaetz, who resigned<\/a> last year after a House Ethics Committee report<\/a> was released detailing his numerous violations of ethics rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the Trump Administration and Lake have no control over the editorial content at VOA, this new choice to use content from OAN has caused major concern, with some reports highlighting how VOA, once known for representing America on the world stage, would become the \u201cVoice of Trump<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve worked so hard to build trust for our brand,\u201d Patsy Widakuswara,VOA\u2019s White House bureau chief and lead plaintiff in the suit, told The New York Times<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThis is eighty-three years of good journalism that\u2019s going to be destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n International broadcasting from entities like VOA is a core pillar of U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy, as the news service promotes<\/a> U.S. democratic interests abroad while countering<\/a> efforts by authoritarian states of controlling and suppressing information. Unlike traditional diplomacy, VOA programming builds trust with its foreign public audience, shaping global perceptions and allowing\u00a0 uncensored news to reach those with limited access to outside information due to their own country\u2019s governing bodies. A survey<\/a> conducted by the Broadcasting Board of Governors indicates that 84 percent<\/a> of VOA\u2019s audiences say they trust VOA to provide accurate and reliable information. With a weekly audience of more than<\/a> 361 million people, VOA\u2019s coverage spans<\/a> forty-nine languages and approximately<\/a> 3,500 affiliates and satellite transmissions \u201cwhere free speech is banned or where civil society is under threat.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n By limiting international broadcasting and news that promotes a non-state sanctioned perspective unbiased news access, authoritarian governments like those in Russia and China, who are already actively making inroads<\/a> in the area of misinformation, will fill VOA\u2019s void with state-friendly narratives, compromising accessible, credible, and independent news.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an awesome decision by Trump!\u201d stated<\/a> Margarita Simonyan, editor of Russia\u2019s state-controlled television network, RT. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t shut [VOA] down, unfortunately, but America did so itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Gil Halsted, a former freelance writer for the VOA, who has reported firsthand from detention centers in Guantanamo Bay<\/a> and the site of the My Lai Massacre<\/a> in Vietnam, says defunding VOA will make it even more difficult to carry out critical reporting on controversial topics.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to go to Guantanamo and actually see with [our] own eyes what the conditions were during the time that the detainees from the War on Terror were being held there,\u201d Halsted tells The Progressive<\/em>. \u201c[It] seems unlikely that under this administration, reporters would be allowed to go down there, and since there\u2019s no VOA, they won\u2019t be able to put a story on the Voice of America and get it out to the network of listeners that VOA was serving.\u201d<\/p>\n This shift from public diplomacy and soft power to nationalist\u00a0 and isolationist diplomacy disrupts the flow of independent information to audience members around the globe, with millions potentially losing a vital source of trusted news. Without this critical government-funded reporting and broadcasting to combat disinformation and propaganda, credible voices will be silenced, as the lawsuit<\/a> shares.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c[VOA] tells America\u2019s story in an even-handed manner, but also gives valuable news and information to people all over the world who may be in conflict zones, disaster areas, and it just breaks my heart that Radio Free Asia\u2019s Burmese service has been off the air at a time when they had this horrific earthquake<\/a>,\u201d Herman says. \u201cThere [are crises] going on in Sudan, in the Congo, on [elsewhere on] the African continent, [and] we\u2019re no longer reaching those people.\u201d<\/p>\n Li Qiang, a human rights advocate and the founder and executive director of China Labor Watch, penned<\/a> an op-ed in March for The Diplomat<\/em> about his experience listening to VOA while growing up in China. For Li and his family,\u00a0 VOA was vital for obtaining accurate information in a country where state-run news outlets are the main point of information access.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn a country where news is entirely controlled by the government, VOA is not just a media outlet\u2014it is the frontline in the fight against authoritarianism and a beacon of American democratic values,\u201d Li wrote. \u201cDespite not receiving a formal university education in China, if someone asks me where I gained my most valuable knowledge, my answer is: the Voice of America.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As lawsuits remain ongoing, the USAGM Employee Association, a volunteer employee support network, is continuing to raise funds<\/a> for staff members. Plaintiffs<\/a> and VOA employees on pause have also launched the #SAVEVOA<\/a> social media campaign to garner support and to advocate for Congressional support of the broadcaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n