Trump freezes media outlets

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday put journalists at Voice of America (VOA) and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, abruptly freezing decades-old outlets long seen as critical to countering Russian and Chinese information offensives.

Hundreds of staffers at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes and office-issued equipment.

Trump, who has already eviscerated the US global aid agency and the Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”

Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, said in an email to the outlets that federal grant money “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”

The White House said the cuts would ensure “taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda,” marking a dramatic tone shift towards the networks established to extend US influence overseas.

White House press official Harrison Fields wrote “goodbye” on X in 20 languages, a jab at the outlets’ multilingual coverage.

VOA director Michael Abramowitz said he was among 1,300 staffers placed on leave Saturday.

“VOA needs thoughtful reform, and we have made progress in that regard. But today’s action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission,” he said on Facebook, noting that its coverage — in 48 languages — reaches 360 million people each week.

The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancellation of funding “a massive gift to America’s enemies.”

“The Iranian ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years,” its president, Stephen Capus, said in a statement.