With Voice of America silenced, who's next?

By Steve Herman / The Fulcrum

The Trump administration has accomplished something that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and other dictators desired. It destroyed the Voice of America.

Until mid-March, the Voice of America had been on the air continuously for 83 years. Starting in 1942 with shortwave broadcasts in German to counter Nazi propaganda, America’s external voice had expanded to nearly 50 languages, with a weekly combined audience of more than 350 million people worldwide, watching on TV, listening on radio, with a weekly combined audience of more than 350 million people around the world watching on TV, listening on radio or viewing its content online or through social media apps.

VOA was unique from the beginning. It vowed not to be a propaganda service. It would deliver news and information, whether it was good or bad. Over the decades, Congress passed and presidents signed legislation ensuring VOA would not be the voice of whichever political party was in power, nor would the White House, the Pentagon, or the State Department be able to censor its content. VOA had a mandate to be fair and balanced.

In my 20-plus years reporting for the Voice of America, mainly from Asia, we always stressed accuracy over speed. As many as three editors would pour over our scripts and texts to ensure they were free from bias. No one ever asked me to spin a story a certain way.

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