The Last Days at Voice of America

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On Saturday, about thirteen hundred Voice of America staffers, myself included, were placed on administrative leave. VOA’s final broadcast went out; its website was updated one last time. For the first time since its creation, in 1942, to combat Nazi propaganda, VOA went silent.

As a press freedom reporter, I’ve spent the past few years constantly interacting with groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. But this time, it was my editor, Jessica Jerreat, and I who reached out to sound the alarm. I wasn’t acting in an official capacity—in fact, I had been ordered not to work—but I felt I had to do something. 

Dozens of VOA staffers in Washington are on J-1 visas, and if they lose them, they may have to return to countries whose governments have a record of jailing critics. Two VOA contributors are imprisoned in Myanmar and Vietnam, and I didn’t want them to be forgotten. 

The following evening, a Sunday, I was texting with a colleague at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Asia to see how we could coordinate our advocacy efforts for both outlets’ jailed journalists—four RFA contributors are imprisoned in Vietnam—when I was notified that I had been terminated from my contractor position, effective March 31. 

I called my editor and fought back tears. Jessica did, too. 

The gutting of VOA, along with our sister outlets Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was sparked by an executive order from President Donald Trump. The US Agency for Global Media, which oversees the entities, was established by Congress, so a president cannot unilaterally abolish it, but his order effectively halted all operations. The final VOA broadcasts and website updates were on Saturday.  

When Trump won a second term, it was an open secret at VOA that there would be changes.

During his first term, he regularly condemned VOA’s coverage, which he once called “disgusting.” Conservative activist Michael L. Pack, Trump’s pick to lead the USAGM, was eventually found in a federal investigation to have repeatedly abused power and engaged in severe mismanagement. Pack also targeted staffers perceived as critical of Trump and interfered in the outlet’s editorial independence. 

I started working as a press freedom reporter at VOA in 2023 as my first full-time reporting job after graduating from Georgetown. I became familiar with the battle to save VOA from those who lived through it and who worried whether VOA’s editorial independence could withstand a second term. Project 2025 had urged the new administration to tear down the firewall separating VOA’s content from its business management and to cut USAGM’s budget to less than $700 million a year, from $886 million. 

Jerreat, along with colleagues Patsy Widakuswara, Katherine Gypson, and Michelle Quinn, won a 2021 award from the National Press Club for their coverage of Pack’s efforts to dismantle VOA’s editorial independence. 

For most of my two years at VOA, I enjoyed relative freedom to report on whatever press freedom stories I wanted, ranging from Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News and the fall of local news in the United States, to Russian and Chinese transnational repression against reporters. We never used to feel like we needed permission for our stories. But in the end, it became very difficult to report on US press freedom issues. 

I continued pitching those stories, and by my count, about half a dozen of them were killed by newsroom managers—either at the pitch stage, or after I had fully reported and written them. I was told that our audience wouldn’t care, or that we had to wait for a better news peg. 

The nixed topics ranged from Trump suing the Des Moines Register over its poll numbers, and the Associated Press suing the White House over access, to how administration officials and Trump himself were harassing journalists by name online. On some occasions, wires from Reuters and the AP were published instead of the original reporting our desk had been set up and assigned to cover. 

Other US press freedom stories that I managed to publish, like one about investigations into news outlets by the Federal Communications Commission, were watered down in a way similar stories hadn’t previously been. 

The press freedom desk’s section on VOA’s homepage was also eliminated. Newsroom managers said it was an oversight, but it never returned despite our requests. Some media watchdog groups reached out asking why. 

I was never told to report on anything in a way that was pro-Trump, and I’m not aware of any cases where that happened. Instead, a pattern emerged in which newsroom managers and senior management were stifling press freedom stories as part of what appeared to be a broader effort by senior VOA officials to stay under the radar and avoid being targeted. Anticipatory obedience seemed to be the name of the game—and unsurprisingly, it failed. 

Morale plummeted, but the challenges also brought me closer with some of my colleagues—some of whom I hadn’t spoken with much before. Colleagues came to the press freedom desk’s corner of the newsroom to ask questions and express their concerns and frustrations about staff being put under investigation (like national correspondent Steve Herman, who was facing an inquiry over his social media use), about what felt like a lack of leadership and clarity, about visa concerns. We were united through cynical jokes, grim smiles, and a determination to continue reporting the news in an independent, fact-based manner. 

VOA was the only news outlet I knew of with a dedicated desk to cover press freedom issues. Weeks ago we began working on an in-depth series for World Press Freedom Day, in May. I joked that we would be fired before then. Then it happened. 

Hanging over the newsroom was the fact that Trump had said in December that he wanted Kari Lake—the local broadcast journalist turned unsuccessful Arizona gubernatorial candidate turned MAGA loyalist—to be the next VOA director. He may not have realized that the job is not appointed by the president, but by a majority vote of the US Agency for Global Media’s International Broadcasting Advisory Board. 

We read her social media posts and her interviews for clues about how she would plan to lead VOA. At the Conservative Political Action Conference, in February, Lake said that as VOA director she would focus the news agency on producing “accurate and honest reporting.”

“Sometimes the coverage has been incredible, and sometimes it’s been pitiful,” Lake added. 

While billionaire Elon Musk, who is behind the so-called Department of Government Efficiency that’s been slashing government agencies like USAGM, had called for VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to be shut down, the sentiment didn’t appear to take off in Trump circles, and Lake previously said it should just be reformed. 

Already under extra scrutiny in the newsroom, our balanced, fact-based reporting was still criticized by Lake and others. Trump envoy Richard Grenell even accused Herman of treason, triggering death threats. 

The day after Lake was announced as a senior adviser to USAGM, the agency placed Herman on “excused absence” as part of an inquiry into his social media presence. 

That same day, our White House bureau chief, Widakuswara, was reassigned to a new beat, which she says was involuntary. 

VOA has long been perceived by some circles in the United States of having a liberal bias, and senior VOA management launched the investigation into Herman’s social media over concerns that it was overly anti-Trump. On Widakuswara’s last day on pool duty last week, she asked the Irish taoiseach, or prime minister, Micheál Martin, what he thought about Trump’s plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Trump cut in, denying that anyone was expelling Palestinians and asking what outlet Widakuswara worked for. When she responded, he jeered and said, “No wonder.” At a time when VOA was under a microscope, these cases drew unfortunate scrutiny. 

Something else that hung over the newsroom was what felt like the absence of senior leadership. 

One of the biggest flash points was a February 26 town hall with VOA director Mike Abramowitz, a longtime Washington Post reporter and editor who later held senior roles at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and at Freedom House before joining VOA in 2024. Abramowitz is among those now on administrative leave.

“I’m kind of a caretaker now,” Abramowitz said at that meeting. “I’m making decisions on a day-to-day basis. The only thing I’m not going to do is make decisions that have long-term repercussions.”

The meeting occurred two days after USAGM instructed VOA staffers to email the Office of Personnel Management with five things that they did last week—a DOGE-inspired order that was met with pushback, especially since most staffers hadn’t received the original email asking for the list. 

The town hall also occurred one day after a senior editor told the press freedom team that upper management—Abramowitz and VOA’s acting director of programming, John Lippman—didn’t really want us to cover the United States anymore. At the time, the press freedom desk had been pushing for my original coverage of the AP’s White House ban to be published. 

When I asked Abramowitz about press freedom coverage during the town hall, he said we could—in fact, should—report on US press freedom issues. When we pushed back and asked why wires had been used instead of original reporting, he claimed no knowledge. 

I managed to publish one more story recapping the latest news on the AP’s lawsuit and the White House’s co-option of the press pool. Still, other stories I pitched, like Trump’s use of litigation and other forms of pressure on news organizations not to his liking, were shot down by newsroom managers, which marked a departure from the autonomy the desk had enjoyed to lead press freedom coverage we believed was relevant for our audiences. Before we were placed on leave, I received permission to report on the upcoming March 20 hearing in the AP’s lawsuit against the White House. 

The town hall featured tough questions and comments from newsroom staff. 

“There is nothing else that can be done for the morale of these people than to hear from you, even if you don’t know the answers,” one editor said. “Be here constantly.” 

Staffers asked about the 1976 charter, which Abramowitz said he would always follow, and they asked about Lake, whom Abramowitz said he wanted to help transition into the VOA director role when the time came. Abramowitz didn’t answer a question about how to proactively protect colleagues with J-1 visas.

Two Russian contractors on J-1 visas who are set to be officially terminated at the end of March are considered at significant risk of being imprisoned if they return to Russia, according to a VOA staffer with knowledge of the situation. Other J-1 visa holder contractors are at risk of being jailed if they return to their home countries. 

As I reflect on my final months at VOA from my apartment in northwest DC, I know that although I lost my job, other colleagues risk much more. Ten journalists from VOA, RFA, and RFE/RL remain jailed around the world—in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Myanmar, Russia, Russian-occupied Crimea, and Vietnam—all for doing their jobs. 

VOA got its start beaming stories about freedom and democracy into occupied Europe during World War II. Now the website hasn’t been updated in days, as if time has stopped, and some broadcasts have been replaced by music, leaving our weekly audience of more than 350 million people every week without the news we’ve long delivered. 

VOA is not perfect; no news outlet is. And while Lake says USAGM is “a giant rot,” I’m proud of the work that my colleagues and I did as we remained committed to accurate, fair reporting.

“So proud that we remained committed journalists until our last hour,” Widakuswara wrote in a message to colleagues upon being put on leave. Indeed we did.

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