Voice of America Goes Quiet. And, Apocalypse Now?
On the Media
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 8.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A recent executive order cut funds for state media organizations, including Voice of America. |
| 0:06.9 | At this hour, from everything I've heard from listeners and our engineers and transmitter facilities around the world, the VOA is effectively silent. |
| 0:15.8 | From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. |
| 0:20.0 | And I'm Michael Lollinger. Radio |
| 0:21.7 | Free Europe is also affected by the cuts. A journalist who spent nine months in a Russian prison |
| 0:27.0 | for her work there grapples with the fallout. I'll be talking to the families of our |
| 0:32.2 | imprisoned journalists. What am I going to tell them that their loved ones are imprisoned for nothing? |
| 0:40.0 | Plus, with everything that's been going on lately, there's a definite scent of apocalypse in the air. |
| 0:47.1 | The idea of it would be good if we just swept this all away. |
| 0:51.9 | It's all coming up after this. |
| 0:59.9 | Music sweat this all away. It's all coming up after this. From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Michael O'Anger. |
| 1:06.8 | Last weekend, multiple publicly funded news services became the latest items on the Trump administration's chopping block. |
| 1:14.3 | All full-time employees and contractors working for the government-funded international broadcaster, Voice of America, were put on leave. |
| 1:21.7 | Also part of the cuts, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, organizations whose intention is to provide unbiased news to countries |
| 1:28.9 | who otherwise might not have access to it. They broadcast to more than 40 countries, including |
| 1:33.3 | Russia, Ukraine, and China. Programs and broadcasts have been going off the air, and at this hour, |
| 1:40.2 | the VOA is effectively silent. A bit of clarification. |
| 1:51.1 | VOA and the Office for Cuba broadcasting are federal entities, whereas Radio Free Europe slash Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks are non-profit news |
| 1:57.8 | organizations. |
| 1:58.9 | But all of them are funded by the United States Agency for Global |
| 2:03.0 | Media. For just under $1 billion in its 2025 budget, USAGM was primed to pump out journalism |
| 2:10.7 | and cultural programming in 64 languages. This isn't just a risk to those individuals who will now lose information about |
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