A crew from Voice of America make a live report near Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on December 13, 2024
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday put journalists at Voice of America and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, abruptly freezing outlets long seen as critical to countering a Russian and Chinese information offensive.
Hundreds of reporters and other staff at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes, office-issued telephones and other equipment.
Trump, who has already eviscerated the US aid agency and Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”
Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter and former Arizona news anchor who was put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, wrote — in an email to media outlets she supervises — that federal grant money “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”
A White House press official, Harrison Fields, took a much less legalistic tone in a post on X, simply writing “goodbye” in 20 languages, a sarcastic jab at VOA’s multilingual coverage.
The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancellation of funding “a massive gift to America’s enemies.”
Source : https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2980950/trump-freezes-voa-radio-free-asia-radio-free-europe
