(RFI)-“For the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced,” Michael Abramowitz, the organization’s director, said in a statement. He added that “virtually” the entire 1300-person staff was placed on leave.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order to reduce functions of several agencies to “the minimum required by law.” Agencies included the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba.
“VOA promotes freedom and democracy around the world by telling America’s story and by providing objective and balanced news and information, especially for those living under tyranny,” Abramowitz said.
One reporter, who spoke under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said: “We expected something like this to happen, and it just happened to be today.”
The Paris-based press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said it “condemns this decision as a departure from the U.S.’s historic role as a defender of free information and calls on the U.S. government to restore VOA and urges Congress and the international community to take action against this unprecedented move.”
The Agency for Global Media also sent notices terminating grants to Radio Free Asia and other programming run by the agency. Voice of America transmits United States domestic news into other countries, often translated into local languages. Radio Free Asia, Europe and Marti beam news into countries with authoritarian regimes in those regions like China, North Korea and Russia.
“The cancellation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s grant agreement would be a massive gift to America’s enemies,” said the network’s President and CEO, Stephen Capus, in a statement.
Combined, the networks reach an estimated 427 million people. They date back to the Cold War and are part of a network of government-funded organizations trying to extend U.S. influence and combat authoritarianism that includes USAID, another agency targeted by Trump.
America does not need enemies from outside. It is destroying itself from inside out. Rule of law and freedom of speech are chucked by the wayside. Federal agencies that gave the nation stability are crumbling before our very own eyes. A South African, an unelected billionaire, a father of 14 children from many wives and who never paid his share of taxes is doing the hit job, in the process amassing for himself enormous public data from those agencies. Americans are in a sort of daze for now. When they wake up, if they ever do so, they will surely discover they have been had by individuals who think they are above the law and who in fact are robber barons of sorts. America, once the beacon of freedom, is drowning in its own vomit.