The contractor sent an email on March 31st informing them of the termination.
US President Donald Trump’s administration began firing staff to the US (VOA) after signing executive orders to place almost all of his employees on a state-funded media network during his leave.
On Sunday, VOA employees working under the contract received an email informing them that it was terminated on March 31st.
In an email seen by Al Jazeera, the US Global Media Agency (USAGM) stated that contractors must “stop all work immediately” and “we are not permitted to access agents or systems.”
“Contractors, including myself, have just received an email from Voice of America notifying us that the contract will end on March 31, 2025,” said Misha Komadovsky, White House correspondent for VOA’s Russian Language Bureau, in a post on X.
The move comes after Trump signed an executive order on Friday to effectively eliminate USAGM. It also hosts Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, along with six other federal agencies.
In a statement, the White House said the move “will prevent taxpayers from becoming a fundamental propaganda hook,” listing a series of criticisms from conservative media and lawmakers of the outlet.
Trump’s order is the latest in a series of moves that elicit criticism from media freedom advocacy groups, including borderless reporters and committees that protect committees and journalists.
Last month, the Trump administration announced that it would be banned by the Associated Press news outlets from an event over its refusal to use the “American Gulf” as the name of the Gulf of Mexico, and that it would decide which journalists and media organizations can join the media pool.
The VOA and other US-funded outlets have long faced accusations of liberal bias from Trump and his allies. Among them last month, the station claimed it was made up of “radical left crazy people talking to themselves.”
During Trump’s first term, the White House accused the VOA of “speaking for America’s enemies, not for citizens.”
In 2020, a federal judge determined that Trump-appointed USAGM CEO Michael Pack acted unconstitutionally by investigating journalists on the news service about their alleged bias.
Brian Padden, former VOA director for South Korea and Indonesia, who retired in 2020, said it was the “gallbladder” that he would hear the Trump administration criticize the VOA for spreading anti-aspropaganda.
“In the course of my reporting, I was shot, devastated and even nearly beheaded by an explosive helicopter in eastern Ukraine,” Padden told Facebook on Sunday.
“In 2014, I was harassed by Ukrainian pro-Lussia activists or extremists, accusing me and my VOA TV crew of being pro-American propaganda agents. Both Musk and Russian extremists are wrong. VOA does not propaganda. VOA reports news that includes the perspectives of both the president’s supporters and critics.”
Since Friday’s executive order, VOA broadcasts have been quiet and have been replaced by music in several regions, including parts of Asia and the Middle East.
Founded in World War II from Nazi Germany to combat propaganda, VOA operates in over 40 languages and claims weekly viewers of over 354 million people worldwide.
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