Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an
international broadcasting
International broadcasting consists of radio and television transmissions that purposefully cross international boundaries, often with then intent of allowing expatriates to remain in touch with their countries of origin as well as educate, inform ...
network funded by the
federal government of the United States
The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States.
The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...
that by law has
editorial independence
An editorial, or leading article (UK) or leader (UK), is an article or any other written document, often unsigned, written by the senior editorial people or publisher of a newspaper or magazine, that expresses the publication's opinion about ...
from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American international broadcasters, producing digital, TV, and radio content in 48 languages for affiliate stations around the world.
[*
* by
* ] Its targeted and primary audience is non-Americans outside the American borders, especially those living in countries without
press freedom
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerc ...
or independent journalism.
VOA was established in 1942, during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Building on American use of
shortwave radio
Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the High frequency, high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30& ...
during the war, it initially served as an anti-
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
tool against
Axis
An axis (: axes) may refer to:
Mathematics
*A specific line (often a directed line) that plays an important role in some contexts. In particular:
** Coordinate axis of a coordinate system
*** ''x''-axis, ''y''-axis, ''z''-axis, common names ...
misinformation but expanded to include other forms of content like American music programs for
cultural diplomacy
Cultural diplomacy is a type of soft power that includes the "exchange of ideas, information, art, language and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to foster mutual understanding". The purpose of cultural diplomac ...
. During the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, its operations expanded in an effort to fight communism and played a role in the decline of communism in several countries. Throughout its operations, it has aimed to broadcast uncensored information to residents under restrictive regimes, even airing behind the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
. In response, some countries began investing in technology to
jam
Fruit preserves are preparations of fruits whose main preserving agent is sugar and sometimes acid, often stored in glass jars and used as a condiment or spread.
There are many varieties of fruit preserves globally, distinguished by the meth ...
VOA broadcasts. In post-Soviet Russia under
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
, VOA was designated as a "foreign agent" and blocked alongside other western international broadcasters, but its programming still reaches Russian listeners through other means. Its journalists often take substantial risks reporting inside repressive regimes.
It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and overseen by the
U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an
independent agency of the U.S. government
In the United States federal government, independent agencies are agencies that exist outside the federal executive departments (those headed by a Cabinet secretary) and the Executive Office of the President. In a narrower sense, the term ref ...
funded with Congressional approval, which also oversees
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
.
Funds are appropriated annually under the budget for embassies and consulates. As of 2022, VOA had a weekly worldwide audience of approximately 326 million (up from 237 million in 2016) and employed 961 staff with an annual budget of $267.5 million.
The VOA served its propaganda function by pursuing objective journalism, demonstrating that the US has
free press
Freedom of the press refers to legal protections for public communications media.
Free Press may also refer to:
Publications
* ''Free Press'' (CPBF), the journal of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom
* ''Free Press'' (Malayalam magaz ...
and
free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognise ...
and providing a contrast for people living in countries where the state exerts tight control over the media. Policies have been implemented to try to preserve its accuracy and independence, including the 1976 VOA charter, which mandates its reporting be "accurate, objective, and comprehensive",
and the
1994 U.S. International Broadcasting Act, which prohibits editorial interference by government officials. The agency refers to these laws as its "firewall".
Under the
first Trump administration
Donald Trump's first tenure as the president of the United States began on January 20, 2017, when Trump First inauguration of Donald Trump, was inaugurated as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president, and ended on January ...
, leadership at the agency was replaced with Trump allies and there were several allegations, both internal and external, of interference in hiring and coverage to be loyal to Trump. In
his second administration, Trump signed an
executive order
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the ...
cutting funding to the USAGM. On March 14, 2025, almost all of VOA's 1,300 journalists, producers and assistants were placed on administrative leave.
The next day, many VOA foreign language broadcasts replaced news and other regularly scheduled programming with music and the VOA website ceased being updated.
On May 6, 2025,
Kari Lake
Kari Lake Halperin ( Lake; ; born August 23, 1969) is an American political figure and former television news anchor who has served as the special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media since 2025 under President Donald Trump. S ...
announced that
One America News
One America News Network (OANN), also known as One America News (OAN), is a far-right, pro-Trump news and political commentary television channel and website founded by Robert Herring Sr. and owned by Herring Networks, Inc., that launched ...
(OAN), a
far-right
Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...
, pro-Trump network known for promoting
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
...
, will provide news coverage for VOA.
History
American private shortwave broadcasting before World War II

Before World War II, all American
shortwave radio
Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the High frequency, high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30& ...
stations were in private hands.
[Berg, Jerome S. ''On the Short Waves, 1923–1945: Broadcast Listening in the Pioneer Days of Radio.'' 1999, McFarland. , p. 105] Privately controlled shortwave networks included the
National Broadcasting Company
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
's International Network (or White Network), which broadcast in six languages, the
Columbia Broadcasting System
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
's Latin American international network, which consisted of 64 stations located in 18 countries, the
Crosley Broadcasting Corporation
The Crosley Broadcasting Corporation was a radio and television broadcaster founded by radio manufacturing pioneer Powel Crosley Jr. It had a major influence in the early years of radio and television broadcasting, and helped the Voice of Americ ...
in Cincinnati, Ohio, and
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston.
Over the year ...
which owned and operated WGEO and WGEA, both based in
Schenectady, New York
Schenectady ( ) is a City (New York), city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the United States Census 2020, 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-most populo ...
, and
KGEI
KGEI was a shortwave radio station founded by General Electric in 1939. It was purchased by the Far East Broadcasting Company in 1960.
History
KGEI was founded by GE in 1939 at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island with ...
in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, all of which had
shortwave transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna with the purpose of signal transmission ...
s. Experimental programming began in the 1930s, but there were fewer than 12 transmitters in operation.
In 1939, the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
set the following policy, which was intended to enforce the
US State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...
's
Good Neighbor Policy, but which some broadcasters felt was an attempt to direct censorship:
A licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only an international broadcast service which will reflect the culture of this country and which will promote international goodwill, understanding and cooperation. Any program solely intended for, and directed to an audience in the continental United States does not meet the requirements for this service.
Around 1940, shortwave signals to
Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
were regarded as vital to counter
Nazi propaganda
Propaganda was a tool of the Nazi Party in Germany from its earliest days to the end of the regime in May 1945 at the end of World War II. As the party gained power, the scope and efficacy of its propaganda grew and permeated an increasing amou ...
.
Initially, the US
Office of the Coordinator of Information
The Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) was an intelligence and propaganda agency of the United States Government, founded on July 11, 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, prior to U.S. involvement in the Second World War. It was in ...
sent releases to each station, but this was seen as an inefficient means of transmitting news.
The director of Latin American relations at the Columbia Broadcasting System was
Edmund A. Chester, and he supervised the development of CBS's extensive "La Cadena de las Américas" radio network to improve broadcasting to
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
during the 1940s.
World War II
Even before the December 1941 Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...
, the U.S. government's
Office of the Coordinator of Information
The Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) was an intelligence and propaganda agency of the United States Government, founded on July 11, 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, prior to U.S. involvement in the Second World War. It was in ...
(COI) had already begun providing war news and commentary to the commercial American shortwave radio stations for use on a voluntary basis, through its Foreign Information Service (FIS) headed by playwright
Robert E. Sherwood
Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter.
He is the author of ''Waterloo Bridge, Idiot's Delight, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, There Shall Be No Night'', and ''The Best Years of Our Li ...
, who served as President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
's speech writer and information advisor. Direct programming began a week after the United States' entry into World War II in December 1941, with the first broadcast from the San Francisco office of the FIS via General Electric's KGEI transmitting to the Philippines in English (other languages followed). The next step was to broadcast to Germany, which was called ''Stimmen aus Amerika'' ("Voices from America") and was transmitted on February 1, 1942. It was introduced by the “
Battle Hymn of the Republic
The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is an American patriotic music, American patriotic song written by the abolitionist writer Julia Ward Howe during the American Civil War.
Howe adapted her song from the soldiers' song "John Brown's Body" in N ...
" and included the pledge: "Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth." Roosevelt approved this broadcast, which then-Colonel
William J. Donovan
William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat. He is best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to ...
(COI) and Sherwood (FIS) had recommended to him. It was Sherwood who actually coined the term "The Voice of America" to describe the shortwave network that began its transmissions on February 1, from 270
Madison Avenue
Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stree ...
in New York City.
The
Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...
, when organized in the middle of 1942, officially took over VOA's operations. VOA reached an agreement with the
British Broadcasting Corporation
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public broadcasting, public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved in ...
to share medium-wave transmitters in Great Britain, and expanded into
Tunis
Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...
in North Africa and
Palermo
Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...
and
Bari, Italy
Bari ( ; ; ; ) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy. It is the first most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. It is a port and university city a ...
, as the Allies captured these territories. The OWI also set up the
American Broadcasting Station in Europe
The American Broadcasting Station in Europe (ABSIE) was a radio broadcasting station set up by the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) in collaboration with the British BBC to counter Nazi propaganda.
It started broadcasting on 30 April 1944, tw ...
. Asian transmissions started with one transmitter in
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
in 1941; services were expanded by adding transmitters in
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...
and, after recapture, the
Philippines
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
.
By the end of the war, VOA had 39 transmitters and provided service in 40 languages.
Programming was broadcast from production centers in New York and San Francisco, with more than 1,000 programs originating from New York. Programming consisted of music, news, commentary, and relays of U.S. domestic programming, in addition to specialized VOA programming. About half of VOA's services, including the
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
service, were discontinued in 1945.
In late 1945, VOA was transferred to the US Department of State.
Also included among the
cultural diplomacy
Cultural diplomacy is a type of soft power that includes the "exchange of ideas, information, art, language and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to foster mutual understanding". The purpose of cultural diplomac ...
programming on the Columbia Broadcasting System was the musical show ''
Viva America
Viva may refer to:
Companies and organisations
* Viva (network operator), a Dominican mobile network operator
* Viva Energy, an Australian petroleum company
* Viva Entertainment, a Philippine media company
* Viva Films, a Philippine film comp ...
'' (1942–49) which featured the Pan American Orchestra and the artistry of several noted musicians from both North and South America, including
Alfredo Antonini
Alfredo Antonini (May 31, 1901 – November 3, 1983) was a leading Italian-American symphony conductor and composer who was active on the international concert stage as well as on the CBS radio and television networks from the 1930s through the e ...
,
Juan Arvizu
Juan Nepomuceno Arvizu Santelices (known as Juan Arvizu; May 22, 1900 – November 19, 1985), was an acclaimed lyric tenor in Mexico and a noted interpreter of the Latin American bolero and tango on the international concert stage, on the radio an ...
,
Eva Garza
Eva Garza (May 11, 1917 – November 1, 1966) was a Mexican-American singer and film actress who acquired international recognition in the 1940s and 1950s during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. She collaborated on live radio shows and films wit ...
,
Elsa Miranda
Elsa M. Miranda (14 February 1922 – 27 April 2007) was a noted Puerto Rican singer who was featured on radio and television in the United States during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1940s. As a naturalized Argentinian, she was also active as ...
,
Nestor Mesta Chaires,
Miguel Sandoval
Miguel Sandoval (born November 16, 1951) is an American actor. He is known for his role on the NBC/ CBS drama series '' Medium'' (2005–2011), where he played D.A. Manuel Devalos.
Biography
Sandoval was born in Washington, D.C. He began wo ...
,
John Serry Sr.
John Serry Sr. (born John Serrapica; January 29, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voice ...
, and
Terig Tucci
Terig Tucci (June 23, 1897 – February 28, 1973) was an Argentine composer, orchestrator, conductor, violinist, pianist, and mandolinist. He was a leading advocate of music for the tango in the United States who collaborated with the singer ...
. By 1945, broadcasts of the show were carried by 114 stations on CBS's "La Cadena de las Américas" network in 20 Latin American nations. These broadcasts proved to be highly successful in supporting President Roosevelt's policy of
Pan-Americanism
Pan-Americanism is a movement that seeks to create, encourage, and organize relationships, an association (a Union), and cooperation among the states of the Americas, through diplomatic, political, economic, and social means. The term Pan-Amer ...
throughout South America during World War II.
Cold War

The VOA ramped up its operations during the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
.
Foy Kohler, the director of VOA from 1949 to 1952, strongly believed that the VOA was serving its purpose, which he identified as aiding in the fight against communism.
He argued that the numbers of listeners they were getting such as 194,000 regular listeners in Sweden, and 2.1 million regular listeners in France, was an indication of a positive impact. As further evidence, he noted that the VOA received 30,000 letters a month from listeners all over the world, and hundreds of thousands of requests for broadcasting schedules. There was an analysis done of some of those letters sent in 1952 and 1953 while Kohler was still director. The study found that letter writing could be an indicator of successful, actionable persuasion. It was also found that broadcasts in different countries were having different effects. In one country, regular listeners adopted and practiced American values presented by the broadcast. Age was also a factor: younger and older audiences tended to like different types of programs, no matter the country. Kohler used all of this as evidence to claim that the VOA helped to grow and strengthen the free world. It also influenced the UN in their decision to condemn communist actions in Korea, and was a major factor in the decline of communism in the "free world, including key countries such as Italy and France.
In Italy, the VOA contributed to the decline of communism and a process of "
Westernization
Westernization (or Westernisation, see spelling differences), also Europeanisation or occidentalization (from the ''Occident''), is a process whereby societies come under or adopt what is considered to be Western culture, in areas such as industr ...
". The VOA also had an impact behind the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
. Practically all defectors during Kohler's time said that the VOA helped in their decision to defect. Another indication of impact, according to Kohler, was the Soviet response. Kohler argued that the Soviets responded because the VOA was having an impact. Based on Soviet responses, it can be presumed that the most effective programs were ones that compared the lives of those behind and outside the Iron Curtain, questions on the practice of slave labor, as well as lies and errors in
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
's version of
Marxism
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
.
In 1947, VOA started broadcasting to the
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
citizens in Russia under the pretext of countering "more harmful instances of
Soviet propaganda
Propaganda in the Soviet Union was the practice of state-directed communication aimed at promoting class conflict, proletarian internationalism, the goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the party itself.
The main Soviet cen ...
directed against American leaders and policies" on the part of the internal Soviet Russian-language media, according to John B. Whitton's treatise, ''Cold War Propaganda''.
The Soviet Union responded by initiating electronic
jamming of VOA broadcasts on April 24, 1949.
Charles W. Thayer headed VOA in 1948–49. Over the next few years, the U.S. government debated the best role of Voice of America. The decision was made to use VOA broadcasts as part of
U.S. foreign policy
The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...
to counter the propaganda of the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
and other countries. The Arabic service resumed on January 1, 1950, with a half-hour program. This program grew to 14.5 hours daily during the
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...
of 1956, and was six hours a day by 1958.
Between 1952 and 1960, Voice of America used a converted
U.S. Coast Guard cutter ''
Courier
A courier is a person or organization that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...
'' as a first mobile
broadcasting ship.
180px, left, broadcasting with Voice of America in 1969">Willis Conover broadcasting with Voice of America in 1969
Control of VOA passed from the State Department to the
U.S. Information Agency
The United States Information Agency (USIA) was a United States government agency devoted to propaganda which operated from 1953 to 1999.
Previously existing United States Information Service (USIS) posts operating out of U.S. embassies wor ...
when the latter was established in 1953
to transmit worldwide, including to the countries behind the Iron Curtain and to the People's Republic of China. From 1955 until 2003, VOA broadcast American jazz on the ''
Voice of America Jazz Hour''. Hosted for most of that period by
Willis Conover
Willis Clark Conover, Jr. (December 18, 1920 – May 17, 1996) was a jazz producer and broadcaster on the Voice of America for over forty years. He produced jazz concerts at the White House, the Newport Jazz Festival, and for movies and televisi ...
, the program had 30 million listeners at its peak. A program aimed at
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
in 1956 broadcast two hours nightly, and special programs such as ''The
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hire ...
'' were also transmitted. This was done in association with tours by U.S. musicians, such as
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...
,
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...
, and
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life.
Born and raised in Washington, D ...
, sponsored by the State Department. From August 1952 through May 1953, Billy Brown, a high school senior in
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a County (United States), county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The c ...
, had a Monday night program in which he shared everyday happenings in
Yorktown Heights, New York
Yorktown Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Yorktown in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 1,781 at the 2010 census.
History
Yorktown Heights is in the town of Yorktown, New York, in northe ...
. Brown's program ended due to its popularity: his "chatty narratives" attracted so much fan mail, VOA couldn't afford the $500 a month in clerical and postage costs required to respond to listeners' letters. During 1953, VOA personnel were subjected to
McCarthyist policies, where VOA was accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy,
Roy Cohn
Roy Marcus Cohn ( ; February 20, 1927 – August 2, 1986) was an American lawyer and prosecutor. He first gained fame as a prosecutor of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in their trials (1952–53) and as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel duri ...
, and
Gerard David Schine of intentionally planning to build weak transmitting stations to sabotage VOA broadcasts. The charges were dropped after one month of court hearings in February and March 1953.
Sometime around 1954, VOA's headquarters were moved from New York to Washington D.C. The arrival of cheap, low-cost transistors enabled the significant growth of shortwave radio listeners. During the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by ...
, VOA's broadcasts were deemed controversial, as Hungarian refugees and revolutionaries thought that VOA served as a medium and insinuated the possible arrival of the Western aid.
Throughout the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, many of the targeted countries' governments sponsored
jamming of VOA broadcasts, which sometimes led critics to question the broadcasts' actual impact. For example, in 1956,
Polish People's Republic
The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
stopped jamming VOA transmissions, but
People's Republic of Bulgaria
The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; , NRB; ) was the official name of Bulgaria when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; ) together with its coalition partner, the Bulgarian Agraria ...
continued to jam the signal through the 1970s.
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American Broadcast journalism, broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broa ...
said that: "The Russians spend more money jamming the Voice of America than we have to spend for the entire program of the entire Agency. They spend about $125 million
in a year jamming it."
Chinese-language
Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...
VOA broadcasts were jammed beginning in 1956 and extending through 1976. After the collapse of the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
and the Soviet Union, interviews with participants in anti-Soviet movements verified the effectiveness of VOA broadcasts in transmitting information to socialist societies. The People's Republic of China diligently jams VOA broadcasts.
Cuba
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
has also been reported to interfere with VOA satellite transmissions to
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
from its Russian-built transmission site at
Bejucal
Bejucal is a municipality and town in the Mayabeque Province of Cuba. It was founded in 1713. It is well known as the terminal station of the first railroad built in Cuba and Latin America in 1837. It also hosts one of the most popular and tradit ...
. David Jackson, former director of Voice of America, noted: "The
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...
n government doesn't jam us, but they try to keep people from listening through intimidation or worse. But people figure out ways to listen despite the odds. They're very resourceful."
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, VOA covered some of the era's most important news, including
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
's 1963 "
I Have a Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a Public speaking, public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, Kin ...
" speech, the
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onas ...
, and
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was al ...
's 1969
first walk on the Moon, which drew an audience estimated at between 615 and 750 million people. In 1973, due to the détente policies in the Cold War, Soviet jamming of the VOA ceased; it restarted in 1979.
200px, Buzz Aldrin on the moon, in a photograph taken by
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was al ...
, who can be seen in the visor reflection along with Earth
In the early 1980s, VOA began a $1.3 billion rebuilding program to improve broadcast with better technical capabilities. During the implementation of the Martial law in Poland between 1981 and 1983, VOA's Polish broadcasts expanded to seven hours daily. Throughout the 1980s, VOA focused on covering events from the "American hinterland", such as 150th anniversary of the
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...
.
Also in the 1980s, VOA also added a television service, as well as special regional programs to Cuba,
Radio Martí
Radio is the technology of telecommunication, communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...
and
TV Martí
Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ent ...
. Cuba has consistently attempted to jam such broadcasts and has vociferously protested U.S. broadcasts directed at Cuba. In September 1980, VOA started broadcasting to
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
in
Dari
Dari (; endonym: ), Dari Persian (, , or , ), or Eastern Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language;Lazard, G.Darī – The New Persian ...
and in
Pashto
Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...
in 1982. In 1981, VOA opened a bureau in Beijing, China.
The next year, it began regular exchanges with
Radio Peking
China Radio International (CRI) is the state-owned international radio broadcaster of China. It is currently headquartered in Babaoshan, Shijingshan, Beijing. It was founded on December 3, 1941, as Radio Peking. It later adopted the pinyin fo ...
.
In 1985, VOA Europe was created as a special service in English that was relayed via satellite to AM, FM, and cable affiliates throughout Europe. With a contemporary format including live disc jockeys, the network presented top musical hits as well as VOA news and features of local interest (such as "EuroFax") 24 hours a day. VOA Europe was closed down without advance public notice in January 1997 as a cost-cutting measure. It was followed by VOA Express, which from July 4, 1999, revamped into VOA Music Mix. Since November 1, 2014, stations are offered VOA1 (which is a rebranding of VOA Music Mix).
In 1989, Voice of America expanded its
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
and
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
programming to reach the millions of Chinese and inform the country about the pro-democracy movement within the country, including the demonstration in Tiananmen Square. Starting in 1990, the U.S. consolidated its international broadcasting efforts, with the establishment of the Bureau of Broadcasting.
Post–Cold War
With the breakup of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, VOA added many additional language services to reach those areas. This decade was marked by the additions of services in
Standard Tibetan
Lhasa Tibetan or Standard Tibetan is a standardized dialect of Tibetan spoken by the people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the traditional "three-branched" ...
,
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish language
** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji)
**Central Kurdish (Sorani)
**Southern Kurdish
** Laki Kurdish
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern ...
(to Iran and Iraq),
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
(Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian),
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Macedonia
* Mac ...
, and
Rwanda-Rundi
Rwanda-Rundi or West Highlands Kivu is a group of Bantu languages, specifically a dialect continuum, spoken in Central Africa. Two dialects, Kirundi and Kinyarwanda, have been standardized as the national languages of Burundi and Rwanda respec ...
.
In 1993, the
Clinton administration
Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas, took office following his victory over Republican in ...
advised cutting funding for
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
, as it believed post-Cold War information and influence was not needed in Europe. This plan was not well received, and US President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
then proposed the compromise of the
International Broadcasting Act
Signed in law in 1994 by U.S. President Bill Clinton, this act was meant to streamline the U.S. international broadcasting and provide a cost-effective way to continue Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and Radio Marti.Raghavan, ...
, which he signed into law in 1994. This law established the
International Broadcasting Bureau
The International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) is the technical support outlet within the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) (former Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG), which is a U.S. independent agency. The IBB supports the day-to- ...
as a part of the
United States Information Agency
The United States Information Agency (USIA) was a United States government agency devoted to propaganda which operated from 1953 to 1999.
Previously existing United States Information Service (USIS) posts operating out of U.S. embassies wor ...
(USIA), and established the
Broadcasting Board of Governors
The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) from 1994 to 2018, is an independent agency of the United States government that broadcasts news and information for regions of the world wi ...
(BBG) with oversight authority, which took control from the Board for International Broadcasters which previously had overseen funding for RFE/RL.
[Raghavan, Sudarsan V., Stephen S. Johnson, and Kristi K. Bahrenburg. "Sending cross-border static: on the fate of Radio Free Europe and the influence of international broadcasting," Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 47, 1993, access on March 25, 2011.] In 1998, the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act was signed into law, and mandated that the BBG become an
independent federal agency as of October 1, 1999. This act also abolished the USIA, and merged most of its functions into those of the State Department.
The Arabic Service was abolished in 2002 and replaced by a new radio service, called the Middle East Radio Network or
Radio Sawa
Radio Sawa ( ) was an Arabic speaking radio station broadcasting to the Arab world from March 23, 2002 till November 2024. The station was a service of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc., which also operates Alhurra Television and was pub ...
, with an initial budget of $22 million. Radio Sawa offered mostly Western and Middle Eastern popular songs with periodic brief news bulletins. It then expanded to television with
Alhurra
Alhurra ( ' ,The pronunciation differs depending on the variety of Arabic, for example, . "the Free One") is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. government-owned Arabic-language satellite TV channel that broadcasts news and current ...
in February 2004 (and later to various social media and websites). In May 2004, the US government's international English language TV service
Worldnet, became part of VOA as "VOA TV".
As part of an effort to allocate resources to broadcasts in the
Muslim world
The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...
,
radio programs in Russian, Hindi, Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian and Bosnian ended in 2008.
In September 2010, VOA began radio broadcasts in Sudan. As U.S. interests in
South Sudan
South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...
grew, there was a desire to provide people with free information. In 2013, budget cuts led VOA to end foreign-language transmissions on shortwave and medium wave to Albania, Georgia, Iran, and Latin America, as well as English-language broadcasts to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Then, in 2014, most of its English-language transmissions to Asia were cut,
as well as shortwave transmissions in Azerbaijani, Bengali, Khmer, Kurdish, Lao, Uzbek, and Greek.
Internet era
In 1994, Voice of America became the first broadcast-news organization to offer continuously updated programs on the Internet.
From 1948 until its amendment in 2013, Voice of America was forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens, pursuant to § 501 of the
Smith–Mundt Act
The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (Public Law 80-402), popularly called the Smith–Mundt Act, was first introduced by Congressman Karl E. Mundt (R-SD) in January 1945 in the 79th Congress. It was subsequently passed by ...
.
The intent of the 1948 legislation was to protect the American public from propaganda by its own government and to avoid any competition with private American companies. The act was amended via the passage of the ''Smith-Mundt Modernization Act'' provision of the
National Defense Authorization Act for 2013.
The amendment was intended to adapt the law to the Internet and to allow American citizens access to VOA content.
''VOA Radiogram'' was an experimental Voice of America program that started in March 2013 and ended in June 2017, which transmitted
digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Businesses
*Digital bank, a form of financial institution
*Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company
*Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...
text and images via
shortwave
Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...
radiograms. There were 220 editions of the program, transmitted each weekend from the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station. The audio tones that comprised the bulk of each 30-minute program were transmitted via an
analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...
, and could be
decoded using a basic
AM shortwave receiver
A shortwave radio receiver is a radio receiver that can receive one or more shortwave bands, between 1.6 and 30 MHz. A shortwave radio receiver often receives other broadcast bands, such as FM radio, Longwave and Mediumwave. Shortwave radio receiv ...
with freely downloadable software of the
Fldigi
Fldigi (short for Fast light digital) is a free and open-source program which allows an ordinary computer's sound card to be used as a simple two-way data modem. The software is mostly used by amateur radio operators who connect the microphone ...
family. This software was available for
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
,
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
,
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
, and
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...
systems. Broadcasts could also be decoded using the free TIVAR app from the
Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...
store using any
Android
Android most commonly refers to:
*Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google
* Android TV, a operating system developed ...
device. The mode used most often on ''VOA Radiogram'', for both text and images, was
MFSK32, but other modes were also occasionally transmitted. The final edition of ''VOA Radiogram'' was transmitted during the weekend of June 17–18, 2017, a week before the retirement of the program producer from VOA. An offer to continue the broadcasts on a contract basis was declined, so a follow-on show called ''Shortwave Radiogram'' began transmission on June 25, 2017, from the
WRMI
WRMI (Radio Miami International) is a shortwave radio station broadcasting from Okeechobee, Florida, United States. WRMI is a commercial radio station that sells airtime to businesses and organizations.
Programming
WRMI relays several internat ...
transmitting site in Okeechobee, Florida.
In 2021, Voice of America launched 52 Documentary, a series that publishes weekly films about human experiences. The series is presented on the streaming app, VOA+, and
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
. Films average 10–15 minutes and are translated with captions in several languages, including Russian, Persian, Mandarin, Urdu, and English.
Euna Lee
Euna Lee (; born 1972) is an American journalist.
While working for Current TV, Lee and fellow journalist Laura Ling were detained in North Korea after they crossed into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from the People's Republic of ...
directs the program.
Politicization under the first Trump presidency
After the
January 2017 inauguration of US President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
, tweets by Voice of America seemed to support debunked claims by White House press secretary
Sean Spicer
Sean Michael Spicer (born September 23, 1971) is an American former political aide who served as the 30th White House Press Secretary and as White House Communications Director under President Donald Trump in 2017. Spicer was communications dire ...
about the crowd size and related media coverage. This raised concerns over possible attempts by Trump to politicize VOA.
[Voice of America says it won't become Trump TV](_blank)
, ''The Washington Post''[Trump moves to put his own stamp on Voice of America](_blank)
, ''Politico''
, ''LA Times''[Donald Trump sends two aides to Voice of America studios, raising fears he's going to politicize the outlet](_blank)
, ''Salon'' An Obama-era law gave the powers of the board of the
Broadcasting Board of Governors
The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) from 1994 to 2018, is an independent agency of the United States government that broadcasts news and information for regions of the world wi ...
to a CEO appointed by the president, and Trump's selection of aides to work with the CEO - a former writer for the
right-wing
Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...
website ''The Daily Surge'' and a field director from
Americans for Prosperity
Americans for Prosperity (AFP), founded in 2004, is a Libertarian conservatism, libertarian conservative political advocacy group in the United States affiliated with brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch. As the Koch family's primary pol ...
- during the
presidential transition, raised concerns about VOA being transformed into a more traditional state propaganda platform.
VOA officials responded with assurances that they would not become "Trump TV",
citing existing laws that prevent interference in editorial processes.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, claims and messaging by the Trump administration diverged from that of public health experts and journalists.
In April 2020, the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
published an article in its daily newsletter critical of VOA coverage of the
coronavirus pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...
(CDC) press official Michawn Rich sent a memo to agency employees telling them to deny interview requests by VOA. When VOA reported that Vice President
Mike Pence
Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...
's office required the press to wear masks to cover his visit to the Mayo Clinic, his office then threatened retaliation against the reporter, according to the ''Washington Post.''
On June 3, 2020, the US Senate confirmed
Michael Pack
Michael L. Pack is an American documentary filmmaker who was CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) from June 2020 to January 2021. Pack was nominated by President Donald Trump and took office at USAGM in June 2020 after Senate confirma ...
, a conservative documentarian and close ally of
Steve Bannon
Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist for the first seven months of president Donald Trump's first ...
, to serve as head of the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Subsequently, Director Bennet and deputy director Sandy Sugawara resigned from VOA. On June 17, the heads of VOA's Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Open Technology Fund were all fired, their boards were dissolved, and external communications from VOA employees required approval from senior agency personnel in what one source described as an "unprecedented" move. Four former members of the advisory boards filed suit challenging Pack's standing to fire them. On July 9, NPR reported VOA would not renew the work visas of dozens of non-resident reporters, many of whom could face repercussions in their home countries. In late July, four contractors and the head of VOA's
Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
-language service were suspended after a video featuring extensive clips from a Muslim-American voter conference, including a campaign message from then-Democratic presidential candidate
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...
, was determined not to meet editorial standards and taken down. The ''Post'' reported that VOA Spanish-language service White House correspondent's Brigo Segovia's interview with an official about the administration's response to Pack's personnel and other moves had been censored and his own access to VOA's computer system restricted.
In response to Pack's August 27 interview with ''
The Federalist
''The Federalist Papers'' is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. The col ...
'' website, a group of VOA journalists sent a letter to VOA Acting Director Elez Biberaj complaining that Pack's "comments and decisions 'endanger the personal security of VOA reporters at home and abroad, as well as threatening to harm U.S. national security objectives. VOA's response indicated the journalists may be punished for sending the letter.
On September 29, six senior USAGM officials filed a whistleblower complaint in which they alleged that Pack or one of his aides had ordered research conducted into the voting history of at least one agency employee, which would be a violation of laws protecting civil servants from undue political influence. NPR reported that two Pack aides had compiled a report on VOA White House bureau chief
Steven L. Herman
Steven L. Herman is a journalist and author, and, , Voice of America's chief national correspondent. From 2017 through 2021, Herman was senior White House correspondent and subsequently VOA's White House bureau chief.
Career
Herman was one of ...
's social media postings and other writings in an attempt to charge him with a conflict of interest, and that the agency released a conflict of interest policy stating in part that a "journalist who on Facebook 'likes' a comment or political cartoon that aggressively attacks or disparages the President must recuse themselves from covering the President." A
preliminary injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable reme ...
issued on November 20 barred Pack "from making personnel decisions involving journalists at the networks; from directly communicating with editors and journalists employed by them; and from investigating any editors or news stories produced by them," and characterized the investigation of Herman as an "unconstitutional prior restraint" of his, his editors', and fellow journalists' free speech.
Suspended officials from Voice of America sued the agency news outlet on October 8. They accused Pack of using Voice of America as a vehicle to promote the personal agenda of President Trump and of violating a statutory firewall intended to prevent political interference with the agency, and they sought their reinstatement. In November 2020, US District Court
Judge Beryl Howell found Pack violated the
First Amendment
First most commonly refers to:
* First, the ordinal form of the number 1
First or 1st may also refer to:
Acronyms
* Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array
* Far Infrared a ...
rights of Voice of America journalists.
In December 2020, ''The Washington Post'' reported that Pack was refusing to cooperate with
President-elect
An ''officer-elect'' is a person who has been elected to a position but has not yet been installed. Notably, a president who has been elected but not yet installed would be referred to as a ''president-elect'' (e.g. president-elect of the Un ...
Biden's transition team and, in an end run around the court order, had persuaded VOA Acting Director Biberaj to step down, replacing him with
Robert Reilly, a former VOA director who had written critically of Muslims, gays, and lesbians. On December 19, 33 days before President-elect Biden's inauguration, Pack named Ted Lipien, a former VOA veteran journalist who had since become an outspoken critic of the platform, as head of RFE/RL, and ''
Breitbart
''Breitbart News Network'' (; known commonly as ''Breitbart News'', ''Breitbart'', or ''Breitbart.com'') is an Radical right (United States), American far-rightMultiple sources:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* syndicated news, opinion, and commentar ...
'' writer
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro as head of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Pack attempted to add contractual language that would make it impossible to fire the broadcasting board members he had installed for two years, but it was withdrawn after inquiries from media and Congress.
On January 11, 2021, VOA interim director Reilly ordered veteran reporter
Patsy Widakuswara off the White House beat. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo
Michael Richard Pompeo (; born December 30, 1963) is an American retired politician who served in the First presidency of Donald Trump#Administration, first administration of Donald Trump as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fr ...
gave a speech critical of VOA and conducted an interview with VOA Director Robert Reilly about the dangers of censorship, then did not take permit press questions to Widakuswara followed Pompeo out, trying to ask questions.
In response, dozens of VOA journalists, including Widakuswara, wrote and circulated a petition calling on Reilly and public affairs specialist Elizabeth Robbins to resign. In a statement,
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman
Gregory Meeks
Gregory Weldon Meeks (born September 25, 1953) is an American lawyer and politician who has been a U.S. representative from New York since 1998. He is a member of the Democratic Party and chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 20 ...
and ranking member
Michael McCaul
Michael Thomas McCaul Sr. (born January 14, 1962) is an American politician, attorney, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for since 2005. A member of the Republican Party, he chaired the House Committee on Homeland Security dur ...
supported her reinstatement.
As of 2024, the audience was larger than the next-largest international broadcaster, the
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...
.
On January 19, the last full day of the Trump presidency, Pack named a slate of five directors to head each of the three USAGM boards for RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks: conservative radio talk show host Blanquita Cullum,
Liberty Counsel
Liberty Counsel is a 501(c)(3) Christian ministry that engages in strategic litigation to promote evangelical Christian values. Liberty Counsel was founded in 1989 by its chairman Mathew Staver and its president Anita L. Staver, who are attorney ...
officer Johnathan Alexander, former White House staffer Amanda Milius, conservative writer Roger Simon, and
Center for the National Interest
The Center for the National Interest (CFNI) is a Washington, D.C.–based public policy think tank. It was established by former U.S. President Richard Nixon on January 20, 1994, as the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom.
History
The group ch ...
Fellow Christian Whiton. The following day, Pack resigned at the request of the Biden administration. On January 21, Shapiro resigned from the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Biden named veteran VOA journalist
Kelu Chao to replace Pack. Chao in turn dismissed Riley and Robbins from VOA, naming Yolanda Lopez, another VOA veteran, as acting director; Lopez had also been reassigned in the wake of the Pompeo interview. On January 22, the Biden administration fired
Victoria Coates and her deputy Robert Greenway from the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, naming Kelley Sullivan as acting head.
Second Trump administration
In December 2024, Donald Trump, as president-elect, announced
Kari Lake
Kari Lake Halperin ( Lake; ; born August 23, 1969) is an American political figure and former television news anchor who has served as the special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media since 2025 under President Donald Trump. S ...
would be his choice for VOA Director. Lake had called for imprisoning journalists whose reporting she called "lies",
called for imprisoning a political opponent,
lost elections for Arizona governor and senator, advanced false claims around both her and Trump's election losses and left her previous job with the Phoenix, Arizona, affiliate of
Fox News
The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...
after controversies including spreading
COVID-19 misinformation
False information, including intentional disinformation and conspiracy theories, about the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease has been spread through social media, text messagi ...
. Though the president may make a nomination, under the International Broadcasting Act only the
International Broadcasting Advisory Board has the authority to approve the appointment or removal of the VOA Director.
In February 2025,
Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...
, the functional leader of DOGE, called for VoA and
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
to shut down, coming after previously made suggestions by other government officials to shutter the agency. In February and March 2025, it was reported that at VOA, a chief national correspondent was placed on paid absence and veteran reporter
Patsy Widakuswara was reassigned from the White House
beat
Beat, beats, or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Assault, inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact
* Battery (crime), a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact
* Battery (tort), a civil wrong in common law of inte ...
.
Widakuswara had been given the same reassignment during the first Trump administration, which was reversed under Biden.
At the same time, it was also reported that at least two articles containing criticism of Trump were not published or were changed after publication. A Trump administration official,
Richard Grenell
Richard Allen Grenell (born September 18, 1966) is an American diplomat, public official, and former public relations consultant who has served as Ambassadors of the United States#Special envoys, representatives, and coordinators, special presid ...
, called the VOA chief correspondent's comments "
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...
ous" in a post on X.
On the night of March 14, Trump signed an
executive order
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the ...
, calling the agency "the Voice of Radical America" and reducing the functions of several agencies including the U.S. Agency for Global Media to the minimum required by law. The next day, all employees could not access VOA headquarters, and many VOA foreign language broadcasts replaced news and other regularly scheduled programming with music.
More than 1,300 Voice of America employees were placed on leave.
VOA has also set about ending contracts with the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
,
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
and
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...
.
Kari Lake
Kari Lake Halperin ( Lake; ; born August 23, 1969) is an American political figure and former television news anchor who has served as the special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media since 2025 under President Donald Trump. S ...
, the special advisor to the USAGM selected by Trump, estimated ending these contracts would save $53 million.
Michael Abramowitz, the director of VOA, said in a
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
post on March 15, that he was also placed on leave, along with “virtually the entire staff” of 1,300. The announcement came exactly 24 hours after President Trump signed an executive order to gut VOA's parent agency as well as the network having a move to terminate contracts with
The Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major ...
,
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
, and
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...
.
Some of VOA's local-language radio stations have stopped broadcasting news reports and switched over to music automation to fill the airtime. The decision to cut the service, which has primarily served to counter propaganda in authoritarian countries, was met with praise from Russian state media pundits and condemnation by
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; ; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation, non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its a ...
, who said it sends a "chilling signal" to China and Russia that they "now have free rein to spread their propaganda unchecked."
In response, lawsuits were filed against the Trump administration in March 2025. One lawsuit noted that some VOA employees were foreign nationals with J-1 visas and faced risks to their safety if they were forced to return to their home countries if their visas were to be revoked due to loss of employment. In March 2025, the
District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a temporary restraining order, preventing the Trump administration from carrying out any further actions resulting from the executive order, including terminating staff, ending contracts or closing offices.
On April 22, 2025, a federal ruling from the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the Trump administration to restore VOA and return its employees and contractors to work. On May 3, the
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked the ruling in a 2-1 decision citing a lack of jurisdiction by the district court.
On May 6, 2025, Kari Lake announced that
One America News
One America News Network (OANN), also known as One America News (OAN), is a far-right, pro-Trump news and political commentary television channel and website founded by Robert Herring Sr. and owned by Herring Networks, Inc., that launched ...
(OAN), a
far-right
Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...
, pro-Trump network known for promoting
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
...
, will provide news coverage for VOA.
[ Following the ]June 2025 Israeli strikes on Iran
June is the sixth and current month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars—the latter the most widely used calendar in the world. Its length is 30 days. June succeeds May and precedes July. This month marks the start of summe ...
, several dozens Farsi-speaking VOA staffers were called back to work.
Operations
List of directors
* 1941–1942 Robert E. Sherwood
Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter.
He is the author of ''Waterloo Bridge, Idiot's Delight, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, There Shall Be No Night'', and ''The Best Years of Our Li ...
(Foreign Information Service)
# 1942–1943: John Houseman
John Houseman (born Jacques Haussmann; September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanians, Romanian-born British Americans, British-American theatre and film producer, actor, director, and teacher. He became known for his highly publ ...
# 1943–1945: Louis G. Cowan
# 1945–1946: John Ogilvie
# 1948–1949: Charles W. Thayer
# 1949–1952: Foy D. Kohler
Foy David Kohler (February 15, 1908 – December 23, 1990) was an American diplomat who was the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Early life
Kohler was born in Oakwood, Paulding County, Ohio, Oakwood ...
# 1952–1953: Alfred H. Morton
# 1953–1954: Leonard Erikson
# 1954–1956: John R. Poppele
# 1956–1958: Robert E. Burton
# 1958–1965: Henry Loomis Henry Loomis may refer to:
* Henry Loomis (physician) (1859−1907), American physician
* Henry Loomis (broadcasting executive) (1919–2008), American broadcast executive and physicist
* Henry Loomis, a fictional character played by Jonathan Baile ...
# 1965–1967: John Chancellor
John William Chancellor (July 14, 1927 – July 12, 1996) was an American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC News. He is considered a pioneer in television news. Chancellor served as anchor of the ''NBC Nightly News'' from 1970 to ...
# 1967–1968: John Charles Daly
John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was an American journalist, host, CBS radio and television personality, ABC News (United States), ABC News executive, TV anchor, and game show host, best known for his wor ...
# 1969–1977: Kenneth R. Giddens
# 1977–1979: R. Peter Straus
# 1980–1981: Mary G. F. Bitterman
Mary G. F. Bitterman (born 1944) is an American historian and former media executive. She currently serves as president of The Bernard Osher Foundation, a philanthropic organization headquartered in San Francisco that supports higher education an ...
# 1981–1982: James B. Conkling
# 1982: John Hughes
# 1982–1984: Kenneth Tomlinson
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson (August 3, 1944 – May 1, 2014) was an editor at ''Reader's Digest'' and American government official. He was also chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which manages Voice of America radio, and Chairman of the ...
# 1985: Gene Pell
# 1986–1991: Dick Carlson
# 1991–1993: Chase Untermeyer
Charles Graves "Chase" Untermeyer (born March 7, 1946), is a former United States ambassador to Qatar. He was given a recess appointment by U.S. President George W. Bush and assumed the position on August 2, 2004. After three years, he was succee ...
# 1994–1996: Geoffrey Cowan
Geoffrey Cowan (born May 8, 1947) is an American lawyer, professor, author, and non-profit executive. He is a University Professor at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and ...
# 1997–1999: Evelyn S. Lieberman
# 1999–2001: Sanford J. Ungar
# 2001–2002: Robert R. Reilly
Robert R. Reilly (born October 31, 1946) is a writer, think tank executive and former diplomat. He has published on topics of US foreign policy and the "war of ideas." Reilly is also known as a classical music critic who has written for periodical ...
# 2002–2006: David S. Jackson
# 2006–2011: Danforth W. Austin
# 2011–2015: David Ensor
# 2016–2020: Amanda Bennett
Amanda Bennett (born July 9, 1952) is an American journalist and author who served as CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media from 2022 to 2025. She was the director of Voice of America from 2016 to 2020. She formerly edited ''The Philadelphia Inqu ...
# 2020–2021: Robert R. Reilly
Robert R. Reilly (born October 31, 1946) is a writer, think tank executive and former diplomat. He has published on topics of US foreign policy and the "war of ideas." Reilly is also known as a classical music critic who has written for periodical ...
# 2021–2024: ''vacant''
# 2024–present: Michael Abramowitz
The current director, Michael Abramowitz, assumed the position in July 2024. He previously served as president of Freedom House
Freedom House is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, Freedom (political), political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, wi ...
and spent nearly 25 years as a reporter and editor for The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
.
In December 2024, president-elect Trump announced he would name former news anchor Kari Lake
Kari Lake Halperin ( Lake; ; born August 23, 1969) is an American political figure and former television news anchor who has served as the special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media since 2025 under President Donald Trump. S ...
to be the director of VOA. Under the International Broadcasting Act only the International Broadcasting Advisory Board has the authority to approve the appointment or removal of the VOA Director.
Agencies
Voice of America has been a part of several agencies. From its founding in 1942 to 1945, it was part of the Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...
, and then from 1945 to 1953 as a function of the State Department. VOA was placed under the U.S. Information Agency
The United States Information Agency (USIA) was a United States government agency devoted to propaganda which operated from 1953 to 1999.
Previously existing United States Information Service (USIS) posts operating out of U.S. embassies wor ...
in 1953. When the USIA was abolished in 1999, VOA was placed under the BBG which is an autonomous U.S. government agency, with bipartisan membership. The Secretary of State has a seat on the BBG. The BBG was established as a buffer to protect VOA and other U.S.-sponsored, non-military, international broadcasters from political interference. It replaced the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) that oversaw the funding and operation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
, a branch of VOA.
Editorial policies
Voice of America's editorial policies are intended to cultivate a reputation for accuracy. It has enacted several policies over time to reduce the ability of politicians to interfere.
Under the Eisenhower administration in 1959, VOA Director Henry Loomis Henry Loomis may refer to:
* Henry Loomis (physician) (1859−1907), American physician
* Henry Loomis (broadcasting executive) (1919–2008), American broadcast executive and physicist
* Henry Loomis, a fictional character played by Jonathan Baile ...
commissioned a formal statement of principles to protect the integrity of VOA programming and define the organization's mission, and was issued by Director George V. Allen as a directive in 1960 and was endorsed in 1962 by USIA director Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American Broadcast journalism, broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broa ...
. VOA's charter was signed into law by President Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...
. The charter requires it to "present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively." Academics including Téwodros W. Workneh have described this as a public diplomacy
In international relations, public diplomacy broadly speaking, is any of the various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influence with the aim of bui ...
function. VOA's charter also requires it to be "a reliable and authoritative source of news" which "shall be accurate, objective, and comprehensive". According to former VOA correspondent Alan Heil, the internal policy of VOA News is that any story broadcast must have two independently corroborating sources or have a staff correspondent witness an event.
The Voice of America "Firewall" was put into place with the 1976 VOA Charter and laws passed in 1994 and 2016. The firewall's aim is to guard against propaganda while promoting unbiased and objective journalistic standards in the agency.
Despite the firewall, some VOA employees have emphasized how their work serves the goals of the U.S. government. In one instance, a VOA employee told another journalist that "I always keep the best U.S. interests in mind when explaining official policies and why democracy is the best political system to foreign audiences."
Transmission facilities
The Bethany Relay Station, operational from 1944 to 1994, was based on a site in Union Township (now West Chester Township) in Butler County, Ohio
Butler County is a County (United States), county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 390,357. Its county seat and largest city is Hamilton, Ohio, Ham ...
, near Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
. Major transmitter upgrades first were undertaken around 1963, when shortwave and medium-wave transmitters were built, upgraded, or rebuilt. The site is now a recreational park with a Voice of America museum. Other former sites include California ( Dixon and Delano), Hawaii, Okinawa
most commonly refers to:
* Okinawa Prefecture, Japan's southernmost prefecture
* Okinawa Island, the largest island of Okinawa Prefecture
* Okinawa Islands, an island group including Okinawa itself
* Okinawa (city), the second largest city in th ...
, Liberia (Monrovia), Costa Rica, Belize, and at least two in Greece (Kavala
Kavala (, ''Kavála'' ) is a city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala regional unit.
It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos and on the A2 motorway, a one-and ...
and Rhodos).
Between 1983 and 1990, VOA made significant upgrades to transmission facilities in Botswana (Selebi-Phikwe
Selebi-Phikwe (also spelt ''Selibe Phikwe'') is a mining town located in the Central District of Botswana. It had a population of 42,488 in 2022. The town is an administrative district, separate from the surrounding Central District.
Mining
...
), Morocco, Thailand (Udon Thani
Udon Thani (, ) is a city in Isan ( Northeast Thailand), the capital of Udon Thani Province and the sixth largest city in Thailand. The city municipality (''thesaban nakhon'' / city proper) had a population of 130,531 people as of 2019, while Ud ...
), Kuwait, and São Tomé
São Tomé is the capital and largest city of the Central African island country of São Tomé and Príncipe. Its name is Portuguese for " Saint Thomas". Founded in the 15th century, it is one of Africa's oldest colonial cities.
History
Álv ...
( Almas). Some of them are shared with Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
and Radio Free Asia
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a news service that publishes online news, information, commentary and broadcasts radio programs for its audiences in Asia. The service, which provides editorially independent reporting, has the stated mission of pro ...
.
VOA and USAGM continue to operate shortwave radio transmitters and antenna farm
An antenna farm, satellite dish farm or dish farm is an area dedicated to television or radio telecommunications transmitting or receiving antenna equipment, such as C band (IEEE), C, Ku band, Ku or Ka band, Ka Band (radio), band satellite dish ...
s at (known as "Site B") in the United States, close to Greenville, North Carolina
Greenville ( ; ) is the county seat of and the most populous city in Pitt County, North Carolina, United States. It is the principal city of the Greenville, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the List of municipalities in North Carolina, 12t ...
. They do not use FCC
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains ju ...
-issued call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...
s, since the FCC does not regulate communications by other federal government agencies. The International Broadcasting Bureau
The International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) is the technical support outlet within the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) (former Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG), which is a U.S. independent agency. The IBB supports the day-to- ...
also operates transmission facilities on São Tomé and Tinang, Concepcion, Tarlac
Concepcion, officially the Municipality of Concepcion (; ), is a municipality of the Philippines, municipality in the Philippine Province, province of Tarlac, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 169,953 people.
H ...
, Philippines, for VOA.
Languages
The Voice of America website had five English-language broadcasts as of 2014 (worldwide, Learning English, Cambodia
Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
, Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
, and Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
). Additionally, the VOA website has versions in 48 foreign languages.
Radio programs are marked with an "R"; television programs with a "T":
# Afan Oromo
# Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
# Amharic
Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
# Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...
# Azerbaijani
# Bambara
# Bangla
Bangla () may refer to:
*Bengali language, an eastern Indo-Aryan language
*The endonym of Bengal, a geographical and ethno-linguistic region in South Asia
*''Bangla-'', a prefix indicating Bangladesh
*West Bengal, a state in eastern India, also kn ...
# Bosnian
# Burmese
# Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
# Dari Persian
Dari (; endonym: ), Dari Persian (, , or , ), or Eastern Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language;Lazard, G.Darī – The New Persian ...
# English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
# French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
# Georgian
# Haitian Creole
Haitian Creole (; , ; , ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it ...
# Hausa
Hausa may refer to:
* Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa
* Hausa language, spoken in West Africa
* Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states
* Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse
See also
...
# Indonesian
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesian ...
# Khmer
# Kinyarwanda
Kinyarwanda, Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is a Bantu language and the national language of Rwanda. It is a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is also spoken in adjacent parts of the Democratic Republic of the ...
# Kirundi
Kirundi (), also known as Rundi, is a Bantu language and the national language of Burundi. It is mutually intelligible with Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda, and the two form parts of the Rwanda-Rundi dialect continuum spoken in Buru ...
# Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean
**Korean dialects
**See also: North–South differences in t ...
# Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish language
** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji)
**Central Kurdish (Sorani)
**Southern Kurdish
** Laki Kurdish
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern ...
# Lao
# Lingala
Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...
# Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Macedonia
* Mac ...
# Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
# Ndebele
Ndebele may refer to:
*Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa
*Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe
* Sumayela Ndebele (Northern Transvaal Ndebele), located in South Africa
Languages
*Southern Ndebele language, the language of ...
# Pashto
Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...
# Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
# Portuguese
# Rohingya
The Rohingya people (; ; ) are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who predominantly follow Islam from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Ro ...
# Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
# Sango
# Serbian
Serbian may refer to:
* Pertaining to Serbia in Southeast Europe; in particular
**Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans
** Serbian language
** Serbian culture
**Demographics of Serbia, includes other ethnic groups within the co ...
# Shona
Shona often refers to:
* Shona people, a Southern African people
** Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today
** Shona languages, a wider group of languages defined in the early 20th century
** Kingdom of Zimbabwe, a Shona stat ...
# Sindhi
# Somali
# Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
# Swahili
Swahili may refer to:
* Swahili language, a Bantu language officially used in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes.
* Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa.
* Swahili culture, the culture of the Swahili p ...
# Thai
# Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
# Tigrinya Tigrinya may refer to:
* Tigrinya language
Tigrinya, sometimes romanized as Tigrigna, is an Ethio-Semitic languages, Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic languages, Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It i ...
# Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
* Something related to Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire
* The w ...
# Ukrainian
# Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
# Uzbek
# Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...
# Wolof
Wolof or Wollof may refer to:
* Wolof people, an ethnic group found in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania
* Wolof language, a language spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania
* The Wolof or Jolof Empire, a medieval West African successor of the Mal ...
The number of languages varies according to the priorities of the United States government and the world situation.
Region-specific reception
Voice of America is generally seen by scholars and listeners as having a positive impact and serving as US diplomacy, while others see it as American propaganda. Voice of America has attended to more remote areas that are poorly covered by other media, helping to boost democracy efforts by shining a spotlight on autocrats so the people can make them accountable.
China
A study was done on Chinese students in America. It found that through the VOA, they disapproved of the actions of the Chinese government. Another study was done on Chinese scholars in America, and found that the VOA had an effect on their political beliefs. Their political beliefs did not change in relation to China, though, as they did not tend to believe the VOA's reports on China.
In February 2013, a documentary released by China Central Television
China Central Television (CCTV) is the State media, national television broadcaster of China, established in 1958. CCTV is operated by the National Radio and Television Administration which reports directly to the Publicity Department of th ...
interviewed a Tibetan alleged self-immolator who survived his suicide attempt. The interviewee said he was motivated by Voice of America's broadcasts of commemorations of people who committed suicide in political self-immolation. VOA denied instigating self-immolations and demanded that the Chinese station retract its report.
On April 19, 2017, the VOA Mandarin Service interviewed Chinese real estate tycoon Guo Wengui
Guo Wengui (; born May 10, 1970—self claim or October 5, 1968), also known under the Cantonese language, Cantonese name Ho Wan Kwok (), Miles Guo, and Miles Kwok, is a self-exiled Chinese billionaire businessman, political activism, politica ...
in a live broadcast. The government of China
The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's congresses. ...
warned VOA representatives not to interview Guo about his "unsubstantiated allegations". During the interview, Guo said he had evidence of corruption among the members of the Politburo Standing Committee of China, the highest political authority of China. It was then abruptly halted by VOA leadership less than half-way into the three-hour interview. Guo's allegations involved Fu Zhenhua and Wang Qishan
Wang Qishan (; ; born 19 July 1948) is a Chinese retired politician who was one of the leading members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Wang gained prominence in China's financial sector in the late 1980s. In 1994, Wang became the governor ...
(a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, and the leader of the anti-graft movement). The following August, four U.S. Congressmen requested an investigation into the event, with the Office of Inspector General
In the United States, Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to man ...
(OIG) concluding that the VOA leadership decision to curtail the Guo interview was based solely on journalistic best practices, rather than due to any pressure from the Chinese government. Another investigation by Mark Feldstein, Chair of Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...
, came to similar conclusions, criticizing the VOA Mandarin Service interview team for not following instructions by VOA leadership.
Horn of Africa service
The Amharic Service was started in 1982. From 1982 to 1986 its staff included former members of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party
The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) (), informally known as Ihapa (), is the first modern political party in Ethiopia. Established in April 1972, it aimed to turn Ethiopia into a democratic republic.
Both the EPRP and another pa ...
(EPRP) and US-educated staff without strong political involvement in the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution
The Ethiopian Revolution () was a period of civil, police and military upheaval in Ethiopia to protest against the weakened Haile Selassie government. It is generally thought to have begun on 12 January 1974 when Ethiopian soldiers began a rebel ...
and the associated student movement of the revolutionary period. Reporting was mostly critical of the Derg
The Derg or Dergue (, ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when they formally "Civil government, civilianized" the ...
led by Mengistu Haile Mariam
Mengistu Haile Mariam (, pronunciation: ; born 21 May 1937) is an Ethiopian former politician, revolutionary, and military officer who served as the head of state of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991. He was General Secretary of the Workers' Party o ...
. From 1986 to 1996, the service opposed the Tigray People's Liberation Front
The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF; ), also known as the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing Ethnic nationalism, ethnic nationalist, paramilitary group, and the former ruling party of Ethiopia. It was classified as a ter ...
(TPLF)/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front
The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF; ) was an ethnic federalist political coalition in Ethiopia that existed from 1989 to 2019. It consisted of four political parties: Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara ...
(EPRDF), which took control of Ethiopia in 1991. According to Annette Sheckler, who led Horn of Africa service starting in 1998, the reporting became more politicized due to the loss of qualified staff, the anti-TPLF stance of EPRP-supporting staff, and the role of former Derg officials who were recruited to the Service. US ambassadors to Ethiopia, Mark Bass, Irvin Hicks and David Shinn, objected to what they saw as a lack of balance. Sheckler described the Horn of Africa service during an 18-month period in 1996–98 as "essentially ungovernable" with a "legacy of personal animosity, hostility and complete lack of professionalism". The Eritrean–Ethiopian War
The Eritrean–Ethiopian War, also known as the Badme War, was a major armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea that took place from May 6, 1998 to June 18, 2000.
After 1993 Eritrean independence referendum, Eritrea gained independence from E ...
exacerbated ethnic conflicts within the service in 1998. Sheckler wrote memos to VOA leadership describing her assessment of serious problems in the service, and was fired on November 20, 1998, officially for "a lack of professional journalistic ethics"; she describes the reason for her firing as "telling the truth". Peter Heinlein led the service from 2012 to 2014. In 2013, he wrote a complaint about the service, citing role confusion whereby non-journalist translators took on the role of journalists.
The service was mostly seen as anti-Ethiopian government until 2018, when Negussie Mengesha, the head of the VOA Africa division for several years, met the newly appointed Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed
Abiy Ahmed Ali (; ; born 15 August 1976) is an Ethiopian politician who is the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018 and the leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He rose through the ranks of government via the Information Networ ...
. In May 2021, several former employees accused VOA's Amharic
Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
service, under Mengesha, of being biased in favor of the government of Ahmed and failing to report on atrocities committed during the Tigray War. VOA journalist Jason Patinkin reported the problems "at every level of the VOA hierarchy" and resigned, saying it had "sided with the perpetrators both by commission and omission" of "potential crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and perhaps even genocide". In June 2021, ''Mail & Guardian
The ''Mail & Guardian'', formerly the ''Weekly Mail'', is a South African weekly newspaper and website, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa. It focuses on political analysis, investigative reporting, Southern African news, loca ...
'' reported on an investigation which found that during the Tigray War, the only major foreign news service that was not harassed by Ethiopian security services was VOA. VOA frequently covered the Mai Kadra massacre
The Mai Kadra massacre was a massacre and ethnic cleansing carried out during the Tigray War on 9–10 November 2020 in the town of Mai Kadra in Welkait (a disputed area between the Amhara and Tigray Regions) in northwestern Ethiopia, near th ...
, mostly attributed to Tigrayan youth and documented by Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
, while later focusing on the Ethiopian government's dismissal of Amnesty International's report on the Axum massacre
The Axum massacre (alternatively spelled Aksum, also called the Maryam Ts'iyon massacre) was a massacre of about 100–800 civilians that took place in Axum during the Tigray War. The main part of the massacre occurred on the afternoon and eveni ...
rather than on the methods and content of the report itself. A majority of the stories about the war only showed government or military officials' points of view. Instructions emailed to staff stated that the terms "civil war" and "war" were forbidden in reporting on the Tigray War, with Scott Stearns writing on 14 November, according to ''Mail & Guardian'', "There are to be no deviations from these instructions by any member of any Africa division language service on any platform."
Israel and Palestine
After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, an email was sent to Voice of America staff from the associate editor for news standards with guidance related to how to refer to the actions ("terrorist acts" or "acts of terror") and advice about how to refer to individual members of Hamas
The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
, i.e. to use the term "terrorist" only in direct quotes from sources. At the time, VOA was not the only news outlet with journalists discussing how to objectively refer to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
. Six Republican members of Congress signed a letter sent by Senator Bill Hagerty
William Francis Hagerty IV ( ; born August 14, 1959) is an American politician, businessman, and diplomat serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Tennessee since 2021. A membe ...
, which criticized and strongly objected to the editorial guidance about how to refer to individual members of Hamas. USAGM chief executive Amanda Bennett sent a letter to the senators to clarify that the VOA email was guidance only, and "There is no policy prohibiting the use of the words 'terror,' 'terrorism,' or 'terrorist at VOA, and stating the news organizations within USAGM "counsel care and attention in the use of the words but do not place any restrictions on the appropriate use." The controversy prompted Congress to reduce the budget of VOA's parent organization, USAGM.
Kurdistan and Iran
VOA's service in Iran had a negative impact on Kurd
Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
s and Kurdistan
Kurdistan (, ; ), or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo- cultural region in West Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. G ...
according to the publication '' Kurdish Life'' in 2000. They claimed that the VOA exacerbated the conflict between the Talabani and the Barzani. They further claimed that the VOA covered up wrongful imprisonments, wrongful arrests, and the building of extremist mosques. According to the same publication, Kurds were being turned into fanatics, and a new generation of terrorists was forming because of the VOA. They claimed the VOA was doing this to help PUK.
On April 2, 2007, Abdul Malik Rigi, the leader of Jundullah, an Iranian Muslim Sunni
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...
Salafi
The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a fundamentalist revival movement within Sunni Islam, originating in the late 19th century and influential in the Islamic world to this day. The name "''Salafiyya''" is a self-designation, claiming a retu ...
militant group with possible links to al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
, appeared on Voice of America's Persian-language
Persian ( ), also known by its endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken ...
service. The interview was condemned by the Iranian government
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (), known simply as ''Nezam'' (), is the ruling State (polity), state and current political system in Iran, in power since the Iranian Revolution and fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979.
Its Const ...
. Jundullah was linked to attacks on both Iranian military and civilians. Rigi was captured by the Iranian security services and executed in 2010 in Evin Prison
Evin Prison () is a prison located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been the primary site for detaining Iran's political prisoners since 1972, before and after the Iranian Revolution, in a purpose-built wing nicknamed "E ...
in Tehran
Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
.
On June 12, 2024, the House Foreign Affairs Committee concluded that there was "credible evidence of corruption" regarding the matter of Setareh Derakhshesh Sieg, the former director of Voice of America's Persian News Network (PNN). Sieg had been terminated in January 2021 for falsifying her education credentials and corruption-related offenses, but was later reinstated in February under the Biden administration.
Pakistan
The VOA's DEEWA Radio airs in Pakistan. Although in 2015 some listeners were suspicious that the program was promoting an American agenda, others said they were experiencing a positive effect. Some listeners felt that the programs were giving a voice to the voiceless, giving them a sense of empowerment. In 2018, the Pakistani authorities blocked the website of VOA's Pashto and Urdu language radio service.
Russia
In January 2016, upon his arrival in Moscow, Russian authorities detained and then deported Jeff Shell
Jeff Shell is an American media executive who was the CEO for NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, from 2019 to 2023.
Career
Shell is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied economics and applied mathematics, a ...
, the Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversees the Voice of America, despite his having a valid Russian visa. Russian authorities did not explain their actions.
Round-the-clock broadcasting of Current Time began on February 7, 2017.
In December 2017, under a new directive from Russia's Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin (fortification), Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Mosco ...
after a new law was passed by the State Duma
The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly (Russia), Federal Assembly of Russia, with the upper house being the Federation Council (Russia), Federation Council. It was established by the Constitution of Russia, Constitution of t ...
(Russia's lower house of parliament) and the upper house Federation Council
The Federation Council, unofficially Senate, is the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, with the lower house being the State Duma. It was established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993.
Each of the 89 federal s ...
and signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
, Voice of America was deemed a "foreign agent" under the Russian foreign agent law
The Russian foreign agent law requires any person or organization receiving any form of support from outside Russia or deemed to be under foreign influence to register as a "foreign agent". Unlike the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act ...
. In June 2021, the Russian news agency TASS
The Russian News Agency TASS, or simply TASS, is a Russian state-owned news agency founded in 1904. It is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide.
TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterpri ...
reported that Russia's state communications watchdog ''Roskomnadzor
The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as ''Roskomnadzor'' (RKN), is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media. ...
'' complained that the foreign agent Voice of America radio station challengingly refused to observe Russian law because it had not established a Russian legal entity. ''Roskomnadzor'' also said that VOA was as a foreign agent "obliged to mark their content and provide information about all aspects of their activity, including a detailed description of contacts with the authorities."
In March 2022, VOA and other news broadcasters, including the BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
, and Deutsche Welle
(; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...
were blocked in Russia, as after the Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
in February 2022, Russian authorities increased censorship of independent journalism, anti-war protests, and dissenting voices. Nevertheless, many Russians have used VPN
Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...
s and other software to get around Russian government blocks. As of March 2022, VOA broadcasts were reaching people in Russia and the region through TV, FM and medium wave radio, digital, and direct-to-home satellite. In May 2023, Russia banned then-acting VOA chief Yolanda Lopez from ever entering the country.
Turkey
On June 30, 2022, the Turkish media watchdog, Radio and Television Supreme Council
Radio and Television Supreme Council (), also known in short as RTÜK, is the Turkish state agency for monitoring, regulating, and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts. RTÜK was founded in 1994 and is composed of nine members elected by ...
(RTÜK), blocked access to VOA's website amerikaninsesi.com in Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
because VOA had not applied for the necessary licence, which would subject VOA to certain obligations. The RTÜK regulation requires foreign news outlets that publish in Turkey to apply for publication licenses, mandates that at least half of the media organization be owned by a Turkish citizen, and would force VOA to remove content deemed inappropriate by RTÜK. VOA Turkish subsequently broadcast over a different VOA website domain name, voaturkce.com, which in August 2023 was blocked as well. VOA said that "Given VOA's status as a public service international broadcaster legally required to provide 'accurate, objective, and comprehensive' news coverage to its global audience, VOA cannot comply with any directive intended to enable censorship." VOA Turkey, after it was blocked, shared instructions on its social media accounts as to how to use a VPN to access its content.
Historical list of languages
See also
* List of international broadcasters
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
* List of public broadcasters by country
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
* List of world news channels
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
*
* Pomar, Mark G. (2022) ''Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty'' (University of Nebraska Press, 2022
online scholarly book review
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voice of America
1942 establishments in the United States
Anti-communist organizations in the United States
Articles containing video clips
Cold War broadcasting
Democracy promotion
International broadcasters
Mass media companies based in Washington, D.C.
Media listed in Russia as foreign agents
Organizations established in 1942
Peabody Award winners
Publicly funded English language broadcasters
Radio organizations in the United States
Shortwave radio stations in the United States
Television channels and stations established in 1942
Tibetan-language radio stations
United States government propaganda organizations
Good Neighbor policy