DEMOCRACY WATCHWashington Silences Its Own Voice
The Trump administration’s decision to close the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) aids authoritarian propaganda and interference efforts. In many countries, USAGM outlets are among the few sources presenting uncensored, fact-based reporting hampered neither by authoritarian government nor oligarchic censorship or influence. They serve US interests by challenging authoritarians and by giving the people these leaders seek to oppress or influence access to unbiased news and other information.
Two days after the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Soviet television broadcast a 20-second report acknowledging that a minor “accident” had occurred. Omitted was any mention of the high levels of radiation that had been detected as far away as Sweden and of the tens of thousands of people who had been evacuated. Ukrainians needed to tune to a different source, one that the Soviets actively sought to censor, for that information: the Voice of America (VOA).
Nearly four decades later, history repeated itself when Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territory found themselves subject to repressive information control. Moscow’s forces blocked access to the open internet while killing, torturing, and disappearing local journalists, replacing their output with Kremlin propaganda. Determined to persevere and defy their occupiers, Ukrainians again turned to VOA, just as peoples across the unfree world have for the past 80 years. “I’ve been receiving messages from Ukrainians living under Russian occupation in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions,” said Voice of America Ukrainian service reporter Kateryna Lisunova. “They reached out to tell me they were watching every VOA show. For them, it was a glimpse of freedom and hope for future liberation. To do so, they have to use fake names on social media and remain as discreet as possible because if the Russians found out they were listening to VOA, these people under occupation could pay with their lives.”
The outlet, along with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and four other entities, is part of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which the Trump administration has recently targeted for shutdown. (The move is being challenged in court.) The audience of USAGM broadcaster is 427 million people who listen in their 63 languages, an increase of 20% in the past four years as press freedom has declined worldwide.
In many countries, USAGM outlets are among the few sources presenting uncensored, fact-based reporting hampered neither by authoritarian government nor oligarchic censorship or influence. They serve US interests by challenging authoritarians and by giving the people these leaders seek to oppress or influence access to unbiased news and other information. In Iran, RFE-VOA’s Radio Farda has exposed state-sanctioned corruption, violence, and repression. In Venezuela, VOA journalists have provided critical coverage of the Maduro regime. And in Afghanistan, Radio Free Europe’s Radio Azadi broadcast radio lessons for young girls barred from education.
Most Americans are unaware of these activities largely because USAGM’s
