Many have tried to shut down the Voice of America (VOA) over the eight decades since its rapid-fire emergence as a wartime broadcaster in 1942. Today, China blocks its website and jams its signals. Russia declared the VOA a “foreign agent” in 2017. Yet it may be U.S. President Donald Trump who will shut it down for good.
His March 14 executive order to “eliminate” the network to the extent legally possible took immediate effect. Its 1.300 employees were placed on paid leave. Broadcasts in 48 languages soon ceased. Thus ended the network whose “Jazz Hour” program once triumphantly carried the “music of freedom” behind the Iron Curtain. A similar fate has befallen or awaits Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia, the Arab stations Middle East Broadcasting Network, and Radio and TV Martí, which broadcast programs for Cuba.
For Elon Musk, America’s chief saver, these networks are a waste of money. “Nobody listens to them anymore,” he wrote on Platform X, claiming that they consisted of “radical leftists talking to themselves while burning a billion dollars a year out of the pockets of American taxpayers.” Musk is wrong when he says that “nobody” listens to them. The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the government body that oversees all these stations, claims that they reach 427 million people a week in 63 languages in more than 100 countries. Only VOA has a larger audience than other publicly funded international broadcasters, such as the BBC World Service. Few people in America have heard of them because they do not broadcast for a domestic audience. This may explain why these stations do not have many powerful allies in the United States.
Still, there are legitimate and lingering questions about whether these networks spread democracy and strengthen American power, and whether they justify their $900 million annual price tag. These questions become even more relevant in a world awash in blogs, newsletters, and podcasts.
“Project 2025,” Mr. Trump’s conservative plan for a second term, claims that USAGM is largely left-wing, prone to repeating enemy propaganda, poorly managed and, because of flawed security clearance practices, a target for foreign spies. Few of these allegations have been proven. Yet “Project 2025” recommends reforming the agency if possible, or abolishing it if not. Carrie Lake, a former TV anchor and ardent supporter of Mr. Trump, who has been nominated to be the director of the VOA, once advocated reforming the VOA and returning it to its “glory days.” But when Trump issued his executive orders, she declared that “this agency is rotten from top to bottom.”
Since media outlets like VOA and RFE/RL do not broadcast programs for domestic audiences, few people in America have heard of them, which could explain why these stations do not have many powerful allies in the US.
Controversies surrounding the Voice of America (VOA) and its sister media outlets date back almost to their founding. Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RF) were founded early in the Cold War, inspired in part by George Kennan, an American diplomat, with the goal of waging “organized political warfare” against the Kremlin. RFE/RL broadcast to “captured nations” under Soviet occupation, while RS was directed toward the Soviet Union.
After the collapse of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, RFE/RL was accused of crossing the legal line between reporting and inciting rebellion. Almost two decades later, the revelation that the CIA had funded the stations led to a Senate effort to shut them down, with arguments strikingly reminiscent of those raised today: their high cost, the claim that Western European countries should bear the costs, and the difficulty of assessing their usefulness. Among their defenders were Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon.
Ten years later, the debate was still raging: “The value of these broadcasts, expressed in dollars and cents, is almost impossible to measure,” said a study published in 1982, which concluded that “the benefits nevertheless appear to be considerable.” Many credit these stations with the defeat of Soviet communism. Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland, said that his country’s freedom was won thanks to Radio Free Europe and the Pope.
Meanwhile, Radio Sloboda was the first to broadcast the full text of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's “The Gulag Archipelago,” a work that is said to have had an effect on Soviet leaders “like an atomic bomb.” In recent times, it has been much more difficult to assess the contribution of these broadcasters.
By some measures, these stations have achieved remarkable success. Over the past decade, they have nearly doubled their weekly audience, from 215 million in 2014 to 427 million in 2024, despite increasing competition. One reason for this may be listeners’ trust in their credibility. The Australian-based Lowy Institute found that Voice of America accounted for 55% of all online searches in 26 Asian countries for foreign radio broadcasters, far ahead of the second most popular source, Russia’s Sputnik, which had 27%.
The USAGM’s most valuable units are probably those most Americans have never heard of, like Radio Free Asia, which can reach audiences living under the boots of authoritarian regimes and with few other reliable news sources. It is one of the few independent media outlets that manages to extract stories from North Korea or bring exclusive news from China’s Xinjiang and Tibet regions. The outlet has been largely responsible for uncovering the facts about ethnic Uyghurs who have been imprisoned in mass Chinese “re-education camps.” It is also one of the few independent media outlets that reaches Uyghurs, who try to circumvent state censorship of the Internet by listening to its radio broadcasts.
"Unfortunately, we couldn't shut them down. But America did it on its own," said Margarita Simonyan, editor of the Russian network RT, ironically commenting on the termination of funding for VOA and RFE/RL.
Although Russians do not face repression and censorship to the extent that they do with Uyghurs, RFE/RL plays a key role in nurturing independent local journalism. The strength of these stations lies in their historical role as substitutes for local media behind the Iron Curtain, where they employed political émigrés to report in local languages. This tradition continues today, with tailored programming reaching the most remote regions that other media outlets do not reach - from Dagestan to Siberia - and bringing exclusive stories about local corruption scandals and much more.
VOA is similar to state broadcasters like the BBC, offering a mix of political (especially American) news and lifestyle content, and has the largest audience. However, it is harder to argue that it provides an indispensable service in most parts of the world. Never before have people had access to such a wide range of news sources. There are exceptions, however, especially in parts of Africa, where VOA reports on smaller countries and contested elections that are often ignored. Its media attention can play a role in protecting opposition politicians and activists.
“By highlighting individual leaders, the VOA helps create an extra layer of security for them,” says Jeffrey Smith of Vanguard Africa, a pro-democracy organization based in Washington. “It lets the leaders of (repressive) governments know that the world — especially Washington — is paying attention.”
USAGM employees remain hopeful that, faced with public outcry and lawsuits, the administration might relent. RFE/RL may be in a better position than its sister media outlets, as it could receive a temporary bailout from European governments - ten of which have said they will work together to find a way to fund it. The networks are also trying to protect vulnerable employees from returning to repressive regimes.
One reform option could be to merge overlapping functions and language services.
USAGM uses complex metrics to measure its impact, including audience size, trustworthiness, influence, and whether it increases knowledge about international news, particularly in areas targeted by state disinformation. But are reach and trust enough?
Insiders claim they produce invaluable journalism for less money than Russia and China spend on foreign influence operations. They also point out that they must strike a nerve, given the repression their journalists suffer - at least ten of them are currently in prison.
Yet, at a time when America is increasingly withdrawing from the network of alliances that have kept the peace for almost 80 years and is happily dismantling the liberal economic order that has made it rich, there is little hope that arguments about soft power or appeals to lofty ideals will influence Donald Trump or Elon Musk.
Nor will they be swayed by the gloating of American opponents. Margarita Simonyan, editor of the Russian network RT, ironically remarked: "We, unfortunately, could not shut them down. But America did it itself."
With their signal, the candles of hope in some of the darkest parts of the world are extinguished.
Translation: NB
Bonus video:
