Africa-Press – Ethiopia. More than 1,300 Voice of America (VOA) employees were placed on leave.
Nearly all staff members have been placed on leave after United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order gutting the government-run news agency.
VOA, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, reaches 360 million people a week and operates in nearly 50 languages.
Reporters Without Borders slammed the decision, saying it “threatens press freedom worldwide”.
Voice of America’s director, Michael Abramowitz said nearly his entire staff of 1,300 journalists, producers and assistants had been put on administrative leave, crippling a media broadcaster that operates in almost 50 languages.
“I am deeply saddened that for the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced,” Abramowitz said in a post on LinkedIn, saying it has played an important role “in the fight for freedom and democracy around the world.”
VOA’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), also terminated its grants to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcasts to countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia and Ukraine, as well as to Radio Free Asia, which broadcasts to China and North Korea.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday put journalists at VOA and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, abruptly freezing decades-old outlets long seen as critical to countering Russian and Chinese information offensives.
Hundreds of staffers at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes and office-issued equipment.
Trump, who has already eviscerated the US global aid agency and the Education Department “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary”.
The press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders slammed the decision, saying it “threatens press freedom worldwide and negates 80 years of American history in supporting a free flow of information”.
The decision to gut the government-run, pro-democracy news agency comes as Republicans have accused publicly funded media outlets of being biased against conservatives.
In a statement, the White House said Trump’s executive orders “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda” before listing criticisms of VOA, including allegations of left-wing bias.
On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a US Senate candidate whom Trump named a senior adviser to the agency, wrote on X that employees should check their emails.
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