VOA Layoffs: Trump Era Impact & Hundreds Affected
Voice of America (VOA) faces potential shutdown as hundreds of employees receive layoff notices,dramatically impacting its global news role. Explore the ramifications of these cuts, including the loss of 639 jobs, and the impact on VOAS Persian-language services during a turbulent period. These actions, stemming from the Trump era, bring into stark focus the future of VOA and its ability to deliver unbiased information worldwide.Senior Trump advisor Kari Lake described the move as dismantling a “bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.” News Directory 3 provides an in-depth look at this pivotal transition, highlighting concerns about autonomous journalism. Learn about the potential implications for global news dissemination. discover what’s next …
VOA Layoffs Spark Fears of Shutdown, Impacting Global News Role
Updated June 21, 2025
Voice of America (VOA), a global news outlet as World War II, is facing a potential shutdown after 639 employees received layoff notices.The cuts also affect the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA.
The layoffs included staff from VOA’s Persian-language service, who had been recalled from administrative leave to cover reports to Iran following an Israeli attack. One Persian service employee reported that three colleagues were barred from re-entering the office after a cigarette break, their badges confiscated.
Kari Lake, a senior adviser to President Trump, stated that approximately 1,400 employees, or 85% of the workforce at VOA and the US Agency for Global Media, have lost their jobs as March. Lake described the move as dismantling a “bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”
“For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that’s been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste,” Lake said in a news release. “That ends now.”
VOA, which began broadcasting stories about U.S. democracy to Nazi Germany, expanded to deliver news worldwide in numerous languages, often in countries lacking a free press tradition. The Trump administration has frequently criticized news media for alleged bias against conservatives, including proposals to cut funding to PBS and NPR, currently under congressional review.
Jessica Jerreat,Kate Neeper and Patsy Widakuswara,plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the administration,said in a statement the layoffs spell “the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world.”
VOA’s chief national correspondent, Steve Herman, who was retiring to take a job at the University of Mississippi, called the layoffs an “historic act of self-sabotage with the US government completing the silencing of its most effective soft-power weapon.”
What’s next
The future of VOA’s programming remains uncertain. One America News Network has offered to broadcast its signal in VOA’s place.Herman expressed pessimism about VOA’s survival,even under a future Democratic administration,citing the difficulty of regaining audience habits once lost.