The Trump administration has shut down many federal agencies and Order another batch to close last Friday.
Among them is the Voice of the United States – a news outlet designed to help allies fight the Nazis that are still being released and broadcast today. Or did it until Saturday Employees find themselves unable to go to work.
media Comments on Losing American Voicebut that didn’t exactly cause a sensation Opening fire at USDA or The Ministry of Education doesmaybe it is because it is not broadcast in the United States. Americans can visit their website for news, but cannot hear it on the radio or see it on TV.
But, just like Gabrielle Berbey – she and her colleagues Today, I explained Reported the Death of Voice of America – Explained that the media shutdown provides a useful way to understand the Trump administration’s governance approach. I talked about this with Gabrielle, and there’s more – our conversation (with detailed description and clarity) is below.
What is the voice of the United States? Why is it important?
Voice of America is the largest and oldest international broadcaster in the United States. It was founded in 1942 and fought against Nazi propaganda through short-wave broadcasts. By the end of World War II, the Voice of the United States (or VOA) had 3,200 programs in 40 languages around the world.
It has been operating since then, with the mission of continuing to fight authoritarian propaganda and spreading our values around the world. Today, this is Global media organizations in the United Statesor USAGM, which also includes other media you may be familiar with, such as Radio Europe Radio, Free Asia Radio and Radio Martí. Although most Usagm sockets start on the radio, today they also play on TV and are posted online.
Usagm has offices and journalists around the world, where there may otherwise be no access to media other than state-funded media, or there may not be much media infrastructure at all, such as in China, Iran and Afghanistan. In many places, USAGM media is the main voice in the fight against state-sponsored media narratives.
Interestingly, VOA isn’t actually broadcasting in the US, which is why I think many people, especially young people, don’t know what VOA is. But this has played a major role in the past 80 years, and it was its first radio silence.
Why did it silence the broadcast?
On Friday, the Trump administration released Executive Order Essentially, this allowed employees of several agencies to enjoy administrative leave. As Results of this ordereveryone working on VOA and Martí radios took administrative leave, and stores like Free Europe Radio Europe lost funds. This effectively shuts down these channels.
Even in its first term, the Trump administration was very critical of USAGM and the voices of the United States.
During this term, Trump chose the former Kari Lake to fail in Republican governor and Senate candidate Arizona, a fierce Trump loyalist and former media professional – and serves as American voice and serves as special counsel for USGM.
She’s gone in It is reported that I really want to lead VOAand implement comprehensive reforms to the organization. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I talk about some sources of this story, even some former VOA reporters, some say that effective criticism is that VOA will cause our propaganda, and some question whether it is basically the right purpose of propaganda and propaganda to be used to propaganda. Therefore, the changes are somewhat open.
But there are also concerns. VOA reporter – White House Chief Steve Herman – On vacation, another is redistributed involuntarily. So reform may seem fierce, but I don’t know if people expect a complete shutdown.
For some time, the Trump administration may have been divided. On the one hand, Trump Advisor Elon Musk and UN Special Envoy Richard Grenell On Twitter, how we no longer need American voices and how we should turn it off. Lake on the other hand, he responded to these tweets by defending Usagm and thinking of the American voice.
Finally, Lake supports the decision to close the media – Terminate Some grant notes have her signature – Even though she had previously said she was interested in saving it.
USAGM and VOA targets may be of various reasons. First, the Trump administration is trying to make a comprehensive cut through federal agencies, and we have seen that the goal of institutions such as the Department of Education and the U.S. Agency for International Development is to be inconsistent with the government’s worldview, or allegedly inconsistent. You might include Usagm in that category – Trump’s unanimous figure criticized “fake news.” There may also be foreign policy elements. We’ve seen Trump try to do some resets in this regard.
Some of the American opponents cheer for the demise of Usagm, right? Has this completely changed the Trump administration’s position?
I don’t know we’ve seen a lot of thoughts happening to the Trump administration, but yes, we’ve seen the Kremlin and Russian propaganda happy that Trump has been trapped in free broadcasting Asia, radio freedom and the voice of the United States. Chinese state media calls “Voice of America” a “dirty rag” The Trump administration got rid of it.
This response reflects the fact that the USAGM channel is indeed a way for the United States to insert its narrative into these countries, often in a crucial way or in an attempt to make people question state-sponsored narrative.
Without these channels, the United States has lost its way to combat false information. Some people are losing access to the news.
In my report, I talked to a former VOA reporter who remembers listening to VOA from Poland when he was a child in the 1960s. He said he will get American music and American news about VOA, which will be his only source of information from the outside world. For some, even today, this is true – Usagm attracts consumers in some rural areas that lack media infrastructure altogether; this is their source of news.
Broadly speaking, what can we learn from these layoffs?
The Trump administration is indeed looking for ways to develop long-term extreme belief policies.
With VOA and USAGM, there is a cultural element where a cultural war with the so-called “mainstream media” took place. Usagm’s media is part of that media, and while the Trump administration can only do a lot of things to independent media it doesn’t like – such as restricting access to the White House, it can shut down VOA.
But this is just a big problem. We’ve talked about before about government efficiency and efforts to cut waste – it’s easy to see what you don’t like (aka “fake news”) is waste.
And there is also a big restructuring of foreign policy. This is the first idea of the United States – we need to step back to the world stage and focus on the local area, taxpayers’ money should not go to other countries and can only be used at home. We saw the closure of USDA and we saw that here.
So it is indeed a symbol of the larger vision of the administration’s re-alignment that the Trump administration seems to have.
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