President Donald Trump has ordered the federally funded broadcaster to be “eliminated.” Longtime VOA correspondent Steve Herman explains why it will be missed. This episode was produced by Gabrielle Berbey and Travis Larchuk with help from Miles Bryan, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Amanda Lewellyn, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Further reading: Behind the White House Curtain. Trump tapped Kari Lake to run VOA. Then he dismantled it. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Longtime VOA correspondent Steve Herman in front of the White House. Photo by Sarah Silberger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is Voice of America and its historical significance?
Remember World War II? Bad guys, Nazis. Good guys, not the Nazis. It was during those simpler times that the United States launched Voice of America. This is a voice speaking from America. Its mission was to fight Axis propaganda with... American propaganda. But then that war ended, and a new, colder one began.
And Voice of America became an anti-authoritarian tool for the United States, and it grew far beyond the radio.
Around the clock, the Voice of America broadcasts America's message of democracy to the world.
You could find Voice of America on the TV in dozens of languages. And then, over the weekend, after more than 80 years of broadcasting, Voice of America went dark. On Today Explained, it wasn't the Nazis or the communists who finally silenced Voice of America. It was the President of the United States. Support for the show comes from yonder.
There's a certain time and place for you to be checking your phone. And the classroom probably isn't one of them. Shouldn't school classrooms have, at the very least, the level of focus a stand-up comedian would demand of students? Their audience, Yonder, says they are committed to fostering phone-free schools. Learn more at overyonder.com. That's O-V-E-R-Y-O-N-D-R dot com.
Overyonder.com without the E in Yonder.
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This is Today Explained, signing on. On Friday, President Trump signed another executive order to dismantle a bunch of federal agencies, including the one in charge of Voice of America, where Steve Herman works, worked, TBD.
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Chapter 2: What led to the silencing of Voice of America?
There definitely can be reform and sometimes it's frustrating to us when you're using government money how slow it can be. But when I write a story, Sean, it goes through a couple of editors and then if there's anything remotely political in it, it would go through a balance editor, a third editor. I've even had stories that go through four editors.
And again, the stuff that gets out there is going to be shorn, hopefully, of being inaccurate, incomplete, or biased in any way.
You know, Steve, when I hear you talk about room for improvement, it feels like we've heard a similar refrain echoed for the past two months about any number of cuts to any number of federal agencies. I think the biggest difference with Voice of America is that most Americans don't won't notice a difference from yesterday to today when Voice of America shuts down.
What would you say to those Americans right now?
You raise an excellent point. It makes it much more of a challenge to make this relevant to the American people because it's an external entity. And these sort of... exercises, activities will have geopolitical ramifications. The war in World War II was as much a battle for hearts and minds
keeping morale up or trying to destroy morale of the troops, of the people who were having their family members die in combat. That's a really, really important part. Now, we're not engaging in psychological operations or overt propaganda, but we believe that by basically telling the truth, reporting accurately, that that is something really, really powerful. And
And when we're talking about a kind of asymmetrical warfare, which is what's going on between the West and Russia and China, talking about human rights, talking about what's happening in Ukraine, talking about the intimidation that China is carrying out against its neighbors. These are really, really powerful messages.
Steve, thank you so much for your time. I think that's a good place for us to leave it. Thank you, Sean. Steve Herman, chief national correspondent at Voice of America, apparently still. When we're back on Today Explained, we're going to talk about how Carrie Lake, of all people, became a defender of this institution.
Action. Small prices. Great fun.
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