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America’s voice cannot remain in its name for long.
VOA Director Michael Abramulets said in a Facebook post on Saturday that he was kept on vacation, including 1,300 “practically full staff”. The announcement comes a day after President Trump has signed an executive order to Gut to Wova’s Parents’ Agency.
According to the audience, some of the VOA local -language radio stations have stopped broadcasting news news and turned into music to fill the airtime.
Even high editors in VOA have been ordered to stop working, so employees expect news coverage of Broadcaster around the world, according to half a dozen sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity with CNN.
“For at least now, the voice of the United States has been silenced,” said an experienced representative.
The Voice of America is part of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which also operates networks like Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East broadcasting network. They are also on the network of Trump’s cutting block, as networks agreements with operators have been terminated.
Although Trump’s allies argue that the broadcasters are flourishing and outdated, lawyers say that by eliminating networks, the United States is offering airways to China and other world powers, thus damaging US interests abroad.
The United States has been financing international news and current affairs coverage for global audiences for decades. Both Republicans and democratic leaders have supported the right news and efforts to promote democratic values at places through foreign propaganda.
The agency’s mission statement, which is coded in the law, “is to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”
But the Trump administration has different expectations. Earlier this month, an internal memo said that the mission was “the Trump administration’s policies around the world have to present clearly and effectively.”
Trump appointed Conservative Media critic Brent Bozel III to run a parent agency and refused to choose the former TV anchor Carey Leak to run the VOA. The Bozail’s Senate verification is heard in months, with the lake serving as a “senior adviser”. Lake signed some emails, announcing deductions on Saturday.
Lake tweeted that this is being implemented because “the president has issued an executive order titled that the federal bureaucracy should continue to reduce.”
Trump’s ruling said the affected agencies should stop performing all the tasks that are not legally mandatory, and work with more and more people with the rest.
The order was in February, according to Elon Musk’s announcement that the government’s financial -supported international broadcasting agencies should be completely closed.
“No one listens to them anymore,” Musk said on X.
The advocates of the outlets do not strictly agree, and the broadcasters point to a blurk for democracy. These voices include Republican legislators.
“Gutting Radio Free Asia and other US agency for global media platforms fight counters, which were founded by our nation on the principles of independence, and CEDES was taken advantage of by the Chinese Communist Party, North Korea and other governments,” California, a California, and a Peshawar, Achille, and Peshawar.
It is unclear what will happen to the different USAGM platforms.
In addition to the employees who were on holiday on Saturday, some contractors who were working for VOA were told to put their hands in their seeds.
Sources said other staff went to the VOA offices to collect their goods on Saturday because they feared they had been completely closed.
But in a recent memo, before Trump signed his order, the lake raised that the broadcasters would continue to move forward in a fashion.
“It is important that we acknowledge that our agency is financed by hard -working US taxpayers, many of whom are struggling to meet,” Lake wrote earlier this month. “This means that we have an additional responsibility to restore their confidence by acting effectively and honestly to meet the coming moment of the history of their country.”
Lake said she would modernize the agency “in something that the American people are ready to support.”
In his Facebook post, Abramulets said, “VOA needs to think about reforms, and we have made progress in this regard,” but separating the staff from the edge means that VOA will not be able to carry out its mission.
He wrote, “This mission is especially important today, when opponents like Iran, China and Russia are sinking billions of dollars in making false statements to discredit the United States.”
The American Foreign Service Association issued a statement on Saturday that it would “vigorously defend USAGM and foreign services professionals, whose skills are essential to its mission.”
