Hundreds fired at Voice of America

The Trump administration axed hundreds of contractors at taxpayer-funded Voice of America on Thursday, cuts that represent a third of the international broadcaster’s staff.

Voice of America is federally funded and offers news in 49 languages to 361 million people worldwide each week. Its parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, describes VOA as “a beacon of hope for underserved audiences who yearn for information about freedom of expression, civil society and change.”

The fired employees, most of them journalists, were on personal service contracts that make it easier to fire them. They were told they were let go on “the government’s convenience,” according to The New York Times.

The General Services Administration is also closing offices, listing its headquarters at the District’s Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building for “accelerated disposition.”

Kari Lake, an ally of President Trump and a senior adviser at Voice of America’s parent, told the NYT that “we are in the process of rightsizing the agency and reducing the federal bureaucracy to meet administration priorities. We will continue to scale back the bloat at USAGM and make an archaic dinosaur into something worthy of being funded by hardworking Americans. Buckle up. There’s more to come.”

The Save VOA collective wrote in a statement on social media that “today is an incredibly difficult day as USAGM terminates many of our contractors. … Among those affected are J-1 visa holders who will be forced to leave the country within 30 days. Several of these journalists come from countries where they could be arrested or worse because of their reporting for VOA. We are committed to the goal of returning all employees to their positions.”

The firings come after an oral skirmish between the executive and judicial branches over the fate of Voice of America.

The network and other USAGM operations were initially shut down following a March 14 executive order that mandated the agency “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

On March 15, the White House put out an article titled “The Voice of Radical America,” excoriating the broadcaster over its content referring to white privilege and transgender migrants, its style decisions on how to refer to Hamas, politically charged posts by its employees online, suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story and allegations that it had been compromised by foreign nationals and hostile governments.

In April, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an injunction demanding the administration restart USAGM media operations and rehire previously terminated employees, arguing that the administration didn’t have the proper jurisdiction to make such sweeping changes.

While the Trump administration has challenged the ruling and a higher federal court paused part of Judge Lamberth’s ruling relating to the restoration of funding for USAGM, VOA has resumed some operations as he mandated, reported the NYT.