Layoff notices have been sent to 639 employees of Voice of America (VOA) and the United States agency that oversees it, effectively shutting down the outlet that has provided news to countries around the world since World War II.
The notices sent on Friday included employees at VOA’s Persian-language service who were suddenly called off administrative leave last week to broadcast reports to Iran following Israel’s attack.
Three journalists working for the Persian service on Friday, who left their office for a cigarette break, had their badges confiscated and weren’t allowed back in, according to one fired employee.
In total, some 1,400 people at VOA and the US Agency for Global Media, or 85 percent of its workforce, have lost their jobs since March, said Kari Lake, Trump’s senior adviser to the agency. She said it was part of a “long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy”.
“For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that’s been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste,” Lake said in a news release. “That ends now.”
VOA began by broadcasting stories about US democracy to residents of Nazi Germany, and grew to deliver news around the world in dozens of languages, often in countries without a tradition of free press.
But President Donald Trump has fought against the news media on several fronts, with the complaint that much of what they produce is biased against conservatives. That includes a proposal to shut off federal funding to PBS and NPR, which is currently before Congress.
Most VOA employees have been on administrative leave since March 15, their broadcasts and social media posts mostly silenced. Three VOA employees who are fighting the administration’s dismantling of VOA in court were among those receiving layoff notices on Friday.
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