10 hours ago
Voice of America's foreign language services are vital to global peace
The Trump administration has hopefully just learned an important lesson: the strategic importance of Voice of America's foreign language services for U.S. national security.
After Israel launched a full-scale war against Iran — presenting an immediate threat to American troops and vital national interests in the Middle East — Trump officials recalled back to work some VOA Persian Service journalists and broadcasters who had been put on paid administrative leave and threatened with termination.
A few months before Israel's attack to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities, Trump issued an executive order, at the suggestion of Elon Musk, to scale down the broadcasting services of the U.S. Agency for Global Media to the statutory minimum. Kari Lake, Trump's advisor at USAGM, may have wanted to save more of VOA's foreign language services and broadcasting jobs, but she faithfully carried out the president's orders by proposing to reduce staffing of some key foreign language services, including the Persian Service, to just a couple of web journalists for just a few countries.
I managed the VOA Polish Service when it expanded its audience and contributed to bringing a peaceful end to Communism and Russian colonialism in Poland during the Reagan administration. I sent a message advising Lake that VOA cannot handle international emergencies with only a few journalists fluent in foreign languages.
When the Communist regime in Poland declared martial law in 1981, VOA's Polish Service had 15 full-time employees. We increased our broadcasts from two-and-a-half to seven hours daily almost overnight by hiring temporary help and slowly growing our staff to 25 full-time positions. We did not start from nothing or just two broadcasters. At the same time, Radio Free Europe's Polish Service, also funded by U.S. tax dollars, had over 100 employees and many more hours of daily radio broadcasts to Poland. The two outlets helped to eliminate the Warsaw Pact's military threat to America and brought democracy to the region while avoiding war and violence.
Few Americans know that one of the main reasons for starting the VOA Russian Service in 1947 (and Radio Liberty soon after that) was to convince the Russians that the U.S. did not want war and would never first use nuclear weapons against Russia. We needed a communication channel in case of an emergency as well as a tool for countering disinformation.
Fortunately, when the latest war in the Middle East started, full-time VOA Persian Service employees were still on paid administrative leave. They could return to work immediately after the Israeli strikes in Iran. That would not have been possible, had they already lost their jobs, as they would have soon under the Trump administration's plan — and America would have been left without a critical strategic national security asset.
With Musk out of the picture (at least for now), and with the growing crisis in the Middle East, it is time for Trump officials and members of Congress from both parties to work out a reasonable plan to save and reform Voice of America.
However, I do not favor returning the Agency for Global Media to its previous state. Under the influence of Obama and Biden officials, it has become one of the most bloated bureaucracies in the federal government. USAGM's former leadership hired journalists who engaged in partisan news reporting, allowed a reporter to accompany Biden as his guest to an official ceremony and recruited a Russian freelancer, ignoring signs he was a Russian spy. They created a work environment in which several VOA journalists felt free to post on their social media accounts 'death to Israel' and 'f*ck Trump' memes.
These partisan executives have already resigned or retired. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched an investigation into charges that former USAGM officials 'routinely and improperly utilized visa programs to employ poorly vetted foreign nationals, including from nations adverse to' the U.S. and awarded grants to entities 'despite major conflicts of interest.' But those journalists in VOA's foreign language services who did nothing wrong should not be punished for the sins of their former bosses. American citizens and permanent residents are more easily vetted and should always have priority in hiring over individuals residing abroad.
Although he was appointed during the Biden administration, VOA Director Michael Abramowitz, who remains on paid leave, had taken steps to curb partisan excesses of some VOA English news service reporters while increasing support for the work of the best and most critical VOA foreign language services. Abramowitz, a former head of Freedom House, is the first VOA director in a long time who understands the crucial role of foreign language broadcasting. I have always believed that it isn't a bad idea to have a competent leader at VOA who is from the opposite party from the one in the White House. This could help prevent partisan bias, although such an arrangement is unlikely in the current political environment.
While reducing the Voice of America to a few journalists is a wholly unworkable proposition, shrinking the USAGM bureaucracy to just a few people and combining its media operations to avoid duplication is an excellent idea that would save millions of dollars — which then can be used for broadcasts to Iran, China, Tibet, Russia, Cuba, North Korea and a few other countries.
Partisan reporting at Voice of America primarily occurred in the VOA English newsroom rather than in the foreign language services. VOA English newsroom reporters and editors were the ones who, at first, did not report that Biden's performance at his pre-election debate with Trump was in any way diminished. Some VOA English reporters refused to call Hamas 'terrorists' after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
By law, VOA cannot duplicate the work of private media, and there is no major English-speaking foreign country that threatened the U.S. or lacks a free press. Voice of America does not require a large team of journalists to prepare news reports in English that duplicate the work of CNN, The New York Times or Fox News. A small team producing a roundup of American news from multiple sources without ideological censorship is more than sufficient.
What VOA needs are foreign language services that use the best technology to deliver uncensored news otherwise unavailable from private outlets to countries that may pose a threat to America's security and to international peace. Congress and the Trump administration should preserve VOA to help prevent the U.S. from becoming entangled in foreign wars.
Ted Lipien was Voice of America's Polish service chief during Poland's struggle for democracy and VOA's acting associate director. He served from 2020 to 2021 as the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
