Russia’s RT network on the rise as VOA fades

For years, US President Donald Trump’s statements about Voice of America have been blunt. At a press briefing in 2020, during his first presidential term, Trump said, “If you heard what’s coming out of the Voice of America, it’s disgusting, where things they say are disgusting toward our country.”

At the time, Trump was critical of VOA’s reporting about the COVID-19 pandemic and China. Now that he’s back in office, he’s been trying to get rid of VOA altogether.

The person spearheading that effort is Kari Lake, a former news anchor from Arizona who is now a Republican politician. She was Trump’s pick for senior adviser to the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA.

In the weeks leading up to Trump’s second term in office, Lake spoke about her appointment in an interview with the Epoch Times.

“It’s not my job to go in there and make it Trump TV,” Lake said. “But it’s also not our job to go in there and unduly criticize President Trump. I just want to see fair coverage, I think that’s what he wants.”

Soon, it became clear that Lake’s appointment was about closing down the network rather than reforming it. This March, VOA’s 1,300 employees were placed on administrative leave. Its website has been idle ever since — though some of its broadcasting continues.

Lake has defended the cuts. In an interview last month with One America News Network she said, “The taxpayer, by the way, is footing the bill for this nearly billion-dollar agency which broadcasts news to the world, not here in America, but news to the world.”

VOA, along with other similar news agencies funded by the US government, has always catered to an international audience.

Mark Pomar is a senior national security fellow at the Clements Center at the University of Texas and is also the author of “Cold War Radio,” a book about the history of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

“Starting in the 1920s, virtually every major country had an external broadcaster,” Pomar said. “The United States didn’t until Pearl Harbor. And then VOA started in early 1942.”

One of the first VOA broadcasts was in German.

“The key words that resonate to this day, we will tell you the truth whether it’s good for us or not, you will hear it,” Pomar said. “What’s amazing is that Voice of America actually spoke about American battle losses, something that no external broadcaster during a war would ever mention.”

But VOA did, which helped it gain listener trust. After the war, it was unclear if VOA would stay on the air, but the Cold War recalibrated its mission.

Throughout its existence, VOA wasn’t just about news. Many people who tuned in from the former Soviet Union remember VOA for its cultural programming — which opened up a window to the West.

“Among the most popular programs that Voice of America broadcast was American jazz or American pop music or the latest Hollywood movies, stuff that young people in the Soviet Union were very interested in,” Pomar explained.

Years later, with the fall of the Soviet Union, VOA’s mission was again under question. But in the decades that followed, the US still saw value in spreading news and cultural programming in places that had limited press freedom.

Patsy Widakuswara, is VOA’s White House bureau chief, and the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit fighting the order to dismantle the news agency.

“Even though we are funded by Congress, we are mandated by law to broadcast only factual, comprehensive and balanced news,” Widakuswara said. “It’s enshrined in the 1976 law that we call the VOA Charter.”

Widakuswara says that the idea of cutting VOA and other networks like it can’t come at a worse time.

“The fact that this kind of free and independent media is no longer in that space at a time when our adversaries — Russia, China, terrorist groups — are ramping up their propaganda is just a self-inflicted wound,” Widakuswara said.

According to recent reports, RT, formerly known as Russia Today, and Sputnik News — networks controlled by the Russian state that target international audiences — have been expanding their operations in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. The leader of RT, Margarita Simonyan, frequently appears on Russian state TV, disparaging the US and boasting about RT’s reach worldwide.

For Widakuswara, it’s been disheartening to see outlets like RT remain on the air in places where VOA used to draw large audiences. “We have known that they want to dismantle us because, in effect, they have silenced us since March 15. To be honest, it feels traumatizing, and we have been beaten up just for doing our jobs.”

Widakuswara said that it has felt surreal for her to be pushing back against the US government in court in her effort to bring VOA back on the air.

Meanwhile, Lake has promised to keep VOA at a “statutory minimum” level of staffing, to the tune of bringing back 30 out of the original 1,300 staffers. She’s also said in multiple statements that more cuts will be coming.