Reporters for Voice of America and other U.S. networks fear what's next
Source: NPR
June 21, 2025 5:00 AM ET
On Friday, the Trump administration issued mass layoff notices gutting the agency that owns the Voice of America and funds its sister news outlets. That same day, a correspondent arrested in Azerbaijan while working for one of those sister networks — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges his bosses consider bogus.
Given recent headlines about their employers, other journalists for the federally funded news outlets who are foreign citizens say they wonder whether they will have the U.S. government's support if they become victims of political retribution by their countries' leaders. About 1,400 jobs, or 85% of positions, are being eliminated at the U.S. Agency for Global Media in keeping with an executive order issued in mid-March by President Trump, senior White House adviser Kari Lake said on Friday.
The cuts all but wipe out the Voice of America, which has broadcast news coverage and cultural programs to people living under repressive regimes since World War II. "For decades," Lake said in a written statement, "American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that's been riddled with dysfunction, bias, and waste. That ends now."
People who had been working for the agency prior to Trump's second term took grave exception to her actions. "The scope of the agency's actions appears massive and would eviscerate Voice of America's congressionally mandated role to provide objective news to closed societies and other places around the world," Michael Abramowitz, the Voice of America's director, said in a letter to colleagues. He is currently on involuntary paid administrative leave but had not received a layoff notice by Friday afternoon.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/21/nx-s1-5440577/voice-of-america-radio-free-europe-prison-voa-reporters-visas-abroad-kari-lake