President Donald Trump’s administration on Sunday began mass layoffs at Voice of America and other US-funded media, making clear its intent to gut outlets long seen as critical for US influence.
Just a day after all employees were put on leave, staff working on a contractual basis received an email notifying them that they were terminated at the end of March.
The email, confirmed to AFP by several employees, told contractors that “you must cease all work immediately and are not permitted to access any agency buildings or systems.”
Contractors make up much of VOA’s workforce and dominate staffing in the non-English language services, although recent figures were not immediately available.
Many contractors are not US citizens, meaning they likely depend on their soon-to-disappear jobs for visas to stay in the United States.
Most full-time VOA staff, who have more legal protections, were not immediately terminated but remain on administrative leave and have been told not to work.
Voice of America, created during World War II, broadcast around the world in 49 languages with a mission to reach countries without media freedom.
Liam Scott, a VOA reporter who covers press freedom and disinformation, said he was notified that he also reported that he was being dismissed as of March 31.
The Trump administration’s destruction of VOA and sister outlets “are part of its efforts to dismantle the government more broadly — but it’s also part of the administration’s broader assault on press freedom and the media,” he wrote on X.
“I’ve covered press freedom for a long time, and I’ve never seen something like what’s happened in the US over the past couple of months.”
With VOA in limbo, some of its services have switched to playing music for lack of new programming.
In an editorial on the demise of VOA, China’s state-run Global Times said that “the monopoly of information held by some traditional Western media is being shattered.”
“As more Americans begin to break through their information cocoons and see a real world and a multidimensional China, the demonizing narratives propagated by VOA will ultimately become a laughingstock of the times,” it said.
AFP