{"id":120643,"date":"2025-08-31T16:11:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T16:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/08\/31\/trump-administration-moves-to-fire-most-voice-of-america-journalists\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T16:11:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T16:11:28","slug":"trump-administration-moves-to-fire-most-voice-of-america-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/trump-administration-moves-to-fire-most-voice-of-america-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration moves to fire most Voice of America journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WASHINGTON, Aug 31 \u2013 The Trump administration has moved to terminate almost 500 employees of federally funded news organisation Voice of America (VOA).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The step is the latest in President Donald Trump\u2019s drive to strip back the outlet, which the White House has accused of being \u201cradical\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Acting CEO of VOA\u2019s parent agency, Kari Lake, said the decision would \u201chelp reduce the federal bureaucracy, improve agency service, and save the American people more of their hard-earned money.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>A union representing employees called the step illegal in a statement to the New York Times.<\/p>\n<p>VOA was set up during World War Two to counter Nazi propaganda, and has become a major global broadcaster.The outlet is overseen by the Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which said a total of 532 positions would be eliminated. The majority of those employees are from VOA, which would be left with 108 staff, according to a court filing.<\/p>\n<p>In June, Lake announced 639 employees would be terminated, although the notices were later rescinded due to paperwork errors. Some employees also filed lawsuits to block the terminations.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement late on Friday night came a day after a judge ruled the Trump administration had not followed proper procedures in its attempt to fire VOA\u2019s Director, Michael Abramowitz.<\/p>\n<p>The judge also ordered Lake to sit for a deposition, where she would be questioned by lawyers.The lawsuit was brought by a group of agency employees trying to block attempts to close down VOA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe find Lake\u2019s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,\u201d they said in a statement to the BBC\u2019s US partner CBS News.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far we have not seen any evidence of that, and as such we will continue to fight for what we believe to be our rights under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most of VOA\u2019s journalists have been on administrative leave since March but some Farsi-speaking staff were called back as war between Israel and Iran broke out this summer.<\/p>\n<p>The notices will also not affect journalists working in its Office of Cuba Broadcasting division, which broadcasts news in Spanish from Miami.<\/p>\n<p>Critics say Trump\u2019s attempts to strip back VOA amount to an attack on press freedom, and impacts America\u2019s ability to exercise soft power abroad. <\/p>\n<p>The administration has accused the outlet of being \u201canti-Trump\u201d and \u201cradical\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>VOA broadcasts TV, radio and digital content in almost 50 languages.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, Aug 31 \u2013 The Trump administration has moved to terminate almost 500 employees of federally funded news organisation Voice of America (VOA). The step is the latest in President Donald Trump\u2019s drive to strip back the outlet, which the White House has accused of being \u201cradical\u201d. Acting CEO of VOA\u2019s parent agency, Kari Lake, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}