President Donald Trump’s order to interrupt the funding of Voice of America (VOA) and several other democratic media have sparked widespread criticism by organizations and journalists of print freedom, which warns that it is rising seriously harm to independent journalism, which covers some of the most receptive countries.
Trump has announced an executive order at the end of Friday to effectively dismantle the US Global Media Agency, which controls VOA. Following the order, the head of VOA stated that all his 1300 journalists and employees had been put on administrative leave.
Trump’s executive order also terminated the grants for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, which broadcast news for Eastern Europe, Russia, China and North Korea and Central Asia.
The order threatens to close media organizations, which for decades have ensured, regardless of the news and promote the journalism to hundreds of millions of people around the world and provide an information rescue line to people living in authoritarian regimes, the defenders say.
President Donald Trump spoke to the media during a guide tour of the Performing Arts Center John F. Kennedy, before leading a meeting on board, March 17, 2025 in Washington.
Chip somodevil/ghetto images
The Committee for Protection of Journalists, a prominent organization for freedom of the press, called this move the “Dictators and Despot Award” and called on the Congress to act to preserve the media.
Voa and other media organizations were founded during World War II to promote democracy and provide uncensored information. But even after the end of the Cold War, in many authoritarian and poor countries, they continue to play a powerful role as independent news suppliers, sometimes as the only open media where everyone else is censored or strong with flaws, such as Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan and North Korea.
Voa and its affiliates reach 420 million people in 63 languages and more than 100 countries each week, according to the US Global Media Agency. Reporting VoA and RFE/RL is considered routine as a threat of authoritarian regimes that seek to press them, including through their journalists’ prison.
Ten journalists and associates of VOA, RFE and RFA are currently or have been closed or disappeared in different countries around the world, according to the USAGM website.
In Russia and much of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, RFE/RL reporters have played a huge role in the coverage of political repression and sometimes violating major corruption investigations. They hire hundreds of local journalists who report both English and local.
The Persian department of VOA broadcasts television news programs in Iran and manages a news website. The Persian service of RFE/RL, Radio Farda also produces news and analyzes in audio and video formats and manages a news website.
“After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian journalists face intense suppression, censorship, imprisonment and even execution in the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran, leaving an Iranian people almost without access to free media platforms within the country,” said an Iranian journalist based in the UK.
“The exclusion of retail outlets such as Voa Persian, Radio Liberty and Radio Farda will strike a major blow to the freedom of print and the free flow of information in Iran, directly serving the interests of the Islamic Republic,” added the journalist, who demanded not to be specified for security reasons.
In a statement published in his LinkedIn Sunday, Michael Abramovitz, director of Voice of America, said: “For the first time in 83 years, America’s historic voice is silent.”
“Voa encourages freedom and democracy around the world by telling the story of America and providing objective and balanced news and information, especially for those who live under tyranny,” he added.
The signaling for US operator Voice of America is seen in Washington, Colombia County, March 16, 2025.
Bonnie Cash/AFP via Getty Images
But Trump and his allies attacked Voa as corrupt and encouraging values foreign in the United States. Trump, in his first term, accused organizations of talking about “adversaries of America – not her citizens.”
The White House in a statement on Saturday said the order “would guarantee that taxpayers were no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”.
The Trump administration also put up the VOA gutting as part of the drastic efforts to reduce the federal budget led by Elon Musk. Musk last month wrote that USGM retail outlets are “just radical crazy people who talk to themselves while they have burned $ 1 billion in the United States.
Carrie Lake, an unsuccessful candidate for the Arizona Senate, which Trump had eavesdropped to watch Voa and promised to revise it, on Saturday it says that the agency is a “giant rot and weight for the US taxpayers”, calling it “incapable”.
European leaders on Monday expressed the horror of reducing RFE/RL funds, some suggesting that they were investigating ways to partially fill the gap.
Czech Republic Minister Jan Lipavski said RFE/RL, based in Prague, “is one of the few credible sources in dictatorships such as Iran, Belarus and Afghanistan.”
He said he would raise the issue with his European Union Foreign Affairs colleagues on Tuesday about how to help the store to keep the broadcast at least partially.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorski has confirmed that the EU is considering helping RFE/RL, according to Kyiv Independent.
“We are at the brain attack stage, but it is clear that these are worthy institutions whose mission should continue,” Sikorski told the website.
