Most Americans are unaware of it, by design. Unlike the BBC or Deutsche Welle, America's publicly funded news service was never permitted to broadcast here in the United States. To prevent state-funded media from becoming a tool of a would-be despot, it couldn't operate here. Overseas, though, it served a significant function. That function was not propaganda or boosterism, but reliable information. The idea, from the height of American power, was that being a trustworthy source was the best way to spread the message of American values.
Established by an Act of Congress in the era of shortwave radio, it was always meant to stand apart from the aspirations of any given Administration or party.
I know this, personally and deeply, from dinner table conversations growing up.
Mom and Dad met at the Voice. Like pretty much every DC resident, they weren't from here. Mom was a Georgia girl, raised in Athens. Dad was a preacher's kid from Queens. He noticed her, invited her to a party, and, well. Without the Voice of America, I wouldn't exist.
After serving at the Africa desk as an editor, Dad got an assignment to East Africa, which is why my very first memories are of Nairobi. After that, it was back stateside for a few years, then to London, where he was bureau chief. From that, back to the US, where he eventually became the head of the Africa division.
Dad fiercely internalized the core mission of the Voice, as a patriotic Kennedy-era Republican. Not that he voted for Kennedy, of course. Dad was a Nixon man, and Lord help me, would he tell you about it.
Republican though he was, Dad literally put his life on the line for that mission. He disappeared for a long while into a Ugandan prison, seized by the regime of dictator Idi Amin. He spent time on the streets of Belfast during the Troubles. During the Iranian Revolution, he was called in to replace a correspondent who had been injured fleeing a mob. While there, he lay flat on his belly in the International hotel in Tehran, filing a report while Khomeni's Revolutionary Guards sprayed it with small arms fire.
This is a little more dramatic than my small church pastoring.
There were always pressures from the executive, particularly when coverage wasn't Pollyannaish about the actions of any given president. There was strong pressure during the Reagan years to "be more positive" about America, which meant constant pushback against efforts to water down journalistic neutrality. Those efforts soured Dad on the Republican party. Dad would dish at the dinner table about United States Information Agency director Gene Pell, or about efforts to get his successor Dick Carlson on board with the mission.
The Voice, like all state-funded news services, had to adapt to the realities of the internet age. Shortwave radio wasn't the future, eh? But it rolled with the times, and stuck with the mission, showing the world the face of America...which looked a whole bunch like the face of the world. Its journalistic ranks were often filled by those who had come to this country drawn by the promise that things here were different.
But the mission of the Voice is not the mission of Trumpism.
For the Trumpist, media exists to praise Dear Leader and to attack those who oppose him. Any media that does not do this will be attacked and slandered. Because the Voice was publicly funded, Trump has ordered it closed. Even though it's funded by Congress, and its closure isn't constitutional, that means nothing now. Trump installed a sycophant as head of the agency, and she's obedient to him above all else. Why close it? It's "corrupt." It's a "hubris-filled rogue operation filled with leftist bias."
"Leftist?" Oh, c'mon. Actual leftists were always attacking the VOA as capitalist propaganda. These were and are lies, of course, but the folks who are in thrall to Trump wouldn't know this, if they even noticed. They live within the false and fawning information ecosystem of Fox News, which is precisely the sort of party-line support-the-regime media that the Voice was created to oppose. They believe what they read on their X and Facebook feeds, even if much of that comes from Russian and Chinese troll farms.
And so, today, the broadcasts are silenced. The beacon goes dark. The America that the world once knew no longer speaks.
In its place, something else has arisen. Something ignoble and self-serving. Something crass and brutal and cynical.
The Voice that spoke out against the world's despots and authoritarians is no longer ours.
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