On the May 19 episode of “The Court of History” podcast with Guardian Columnist Sidney Blumenthal and Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, CCLP Director Geoffrey Cowan discussed the impact of the Trump administration’s moves to dismantle or eliminate the Voice of America (VOA), which has been reaching about 350 million regular listeners around the world in 49 languages. In addition to orders to stop broadcasting, the changes include funding cuts, staff layoffs, and plans to replace reports by VOA journalists with stories from One America Network, which has described itself as “one of President Trump’s greatest supporters.”
Cowan walked through the legal arguments and consequences of those actions, which he said has already had an irrevocable impact on VOA’s reach and credibility.
To combat what Trump administration representatives called “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the administration ceased broadcasts, put the staff on leave, fired nearly 600 VOA employees (about a third of all staff), and put the VOA building up for sale. The Trump administration has also eliminated broadcasts by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle Eastern Broadcasting Network.
Cowan, who served as the director of VOA during the Clinton administration (1994-1996), said that claims by Trump representatives that VOA was carrying “fake news,” endangers VOA employees and contractors, many of whom are journalists who will probably be forced to return to hostile home countries without American backing. He described VOA’s legacy of bipartisan Congressional support and the legal mandate embedded in VOA’s 1976 charter that requires that VOA’s coverage be “accurate, objective, and comprehensive.”
“The role of the Voice of America is to reach the people of the world in the languages they speak with information they need over transmission systems that they can receive and hear,” Cowan said. It reports on local news from around the world (often in areas where there is no source of local news) as well as on news from America and on American values and institutions.
For more, including Cowan’s thoughts on the U.S.’s surrogate broadcasters, recent court rulings, and VOA’s possible future, listen to the podcast episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrBv_f9a-dA&list=PLBpiUxZcKxXQ8Z9uAY6WXItquhnSIIGIK.