Contractors Terminated Effective March 31
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has initiated layoffs at Voice of America (VOA) following an executive order that placed nearly all employees of the state-funded media network on leave.
On Sunday, VOA contractors received an email notifying them that their contracts would be terminated effective March 31, 2025. The email, reviewed by Al Jazeera, was sent by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA, instructing contractors to “cease all work immediately” and prohibiting them from accessing any agency buildings or systems.
Misha Komadovsky, the White House correspondent for VOA’s Russian-language service, confirmed the news in a post on X, stating, “Contractors, including myself, at Voice of America have just received an email notifying us that our contracts will be terminated effective March 31, 2025.”
This action follows Trump’s executive order, signed on Friday, to dismantle USAGM, which also manages Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, along with six other federal agencies. The White House defended the move in a statement, claiming it would “ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda” and citing criticisms of the outlet by conservative media and lawmakers.
Trump’s directive has drawn widespread condemnation from media freedom advocacy groups, including Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, which labeled the order as “dystopian.” Last month, the Trump administration barred The Associated Press from events for refusing to use the term “Gulf of America” after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico by executive order. The administration also announced it would determine which journalists and media organizations could participate in media pools.
VOA and other U.S.-funded outlets have long been accused by Trump and his allies, including Elon Musk, of liberal bias. Musk recently referred to the broadcasters as “radical left crazy people talking to themselves.” During Trump’s first term, the White House accused VOA of “speaking for America’s adversaries—not its citizens.”
In 2020, a federal judge ruled that Michael Pack, the Trump-appointed CEO of USAGM, acted unconstitutionally by investigating VOA journalists over alleged bias. Brian Padden, a former VOA bureau chief in South Korea and Indonesia who retired in 2020, expressed outrage at the administration’s claims, stating, “In the course of my reporting, I have been shot at, roughed up, and even nearly decapitated by an exploding helicopter in Eastern Ukraine.”
Padden added, “Both Musk and the Russian militants are wrong. VOA does not do propaganda. VOA reports the news, which includes the perspective of both proponents and critics of the president.”
Since Friday’s executive order, VOA’s broadcasts have either gone silent or been replaced by music in several regions, including parts of Asia and the Middle East. Established during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda, VOA operates in over 40 languages and has claimed a weekly global audience of more than 354 million people.
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