The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) has expressed its concerns over U.S. President Donald Trump’s moves to cut funding for Voice of America (VOA).
On Friday, President Trump issued an executive order targeting VOA, cutting its funding and placing most of its employees on leave. The international broadcaster has been on the air since 1942. It is operated by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the government agency that oversees non-military U.S. international broadcasting and is funded by the U.S. Congress.
In his order targeting the organization, President Trump said the move was to “ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”
AIB said that President Trump’s efforts against VOA “represent a significant setback for global media freedom and threaten the ability of millions of people worldwide to access impartial, fact-based journalism.”
AIB says that sources like VOA serve as “critical sources of independent news for audiences living under censorship, state-controlled media and information blackouts. Their reporting provides an essential counterbalance to disinformation and propaganda in some of the most restrictive media environments in the world.”
VOA’s gutting, AIB says, undermines media freedoms and damages America’s credibility. AIB is calling on the U.S. administration to reverse course.
Simon Spanswick, AIB’s chief executive, said, “At a time when the world is looking to the U.S. to be global player for peace and freedom, cutting funding for U.S. international media—one of the main instruments underpinning this goal—seems the wrong direction to take.”
