Monday, March 3, 2025

Voice of America journalists under fire for criticizing the President

 Voice of America, the federally funded broadcaster to the world, has long prided itself on serving as an accurate and fair source of news and on being independent of whichever president and party are in power in the United States, reported The New York Times.

Since the election of President Trump, that independence is increasingly being tested.

In recent months, Voice of America’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has opened human-resources investigations into Voice of America journalists for reporting on criticism of Mr. Trump or for making comments that were perceived as critical of him, according to several employees. Some journalists raised concerns about the investigations in a meeting this week with the broadcaster’s director.

At least a couple of articles that included criticism of Mr. Trump and his administration were not published or were watered down after publication in recent months, said three Voice of America employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.

The Agency for Global Media informed one of Voice of America’s highest-profile journalists, Steven Herman, that he was being placed on an extended “excused absence” pending a human resources investigation, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Herman confirmed receiving the letter, which said the investigation was into whether his “social media activity has undermined V.O.A.’s audiences’ perceptions of the objectivity and/or credibility of V.O.A. and its news operations.”

Weeks earlier, Mr. Herman came under fire from the Trump administration when he cited a quote on social media from an anticorruption watchdog group criticizing cutbacks at the United States Agency for International Development.

Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s envoy for “special missions,” wrote on X that Mr. Herman’s comments were “treasonous.”

“You don’t get to work against the official U.S. government policies while being paid by US taxpayers,” Mr. Grenell continued. “You should be immediately fired.”

Also on Friday, Voice of America officials informed Patsy Widakuswara, the broadcaster’s longtime White House bureau chief, that she was being involuntarily reassigned to another beat, employees said. Some Voice of America journalists suspected the move was part of an effort to reduce friction with the Trump administration, although an official at the broadcaster, who wasn’t authorized to talk to the media, denied that.

The Agency for Global Media declined to comment.

The upheaval at Voice of America comes amid a series of broadsides against the media by the Trump administration. The White House has started selecting which news outlets are part of the press pool that covers the president, and it has barred The Associated Press from events because it won’t reclassify the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The Federal Communications Commission has opened investigations into whether broadcasters are acting in the public interest. And Mr. Trump has filed or threatened lawsuits against news outlets whose coverage he objected to.

Journalists at Voice of America have been fretting about their future ever since Mr. Trump said he would appoint Kari Lake, a former television news anchor and failed Republican Senate candidate who has frequently spread lies and conspiracy theories, to lead the broadcaster.

Ms. Lake has rebuffed calls from Elon Musk and Mr. Grenell to abolish Voice of America altogether. But she has said the broadcaster’s coverage will be free from what she described as “Trump derangement syndrome,” or T.D.S.

“It won’t become Trump TV,” Ms. Lake said during a speech this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an influential gathering of conservatives. “But it sure as hell will not be T.D.S.”

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