Voice of America deserves criticism, but let’s fix it to tell America’s story

Much has been written about the Trump administration's attack on the Voice of America, with the service's supporters reflexively defending it by romanticizing its reputation from World War II and the Cold War. VOA for years has skated on that reputation, and since it doesn't broadcast in the U.S., few here know differently.

No one huddles in the basement any more listening to VOA on a scratchy transistor radio while the Gestapo or KGB patrol the street outside. Much of the news it produces can be heard on other international broadcasters. It has some good enterprising reporters, yes, but civil service hiring rules hinder recruiting the best and the brightest.

Overseas stringers offer foreign reports and dozens of language services provide spot news from the countries they cover. American music is broadcast — probably its most popular feature — as well as lessons on learning English. Its efforts for "democracy building" are overblown, however, touted as a way to continue receiving government funding.

VOA was established during World War II to broadcast the news into occupied nations "without fear or favor," then continued for similar reasons during the Cold War. Today, however, it operates in a media environment unimagined even 20 years ago, with news, opinion and entertainment available worldwide from a myriad of sources 24/7.

Over time, VOA has worked to fulfill its mission while balancing the conflicting obligations of federal service. It is, after all, a federal agency, not as many of its staff like to think of it, CNN or NPR. Budgets have been stretched in the transition to television and the Internet while keeping its far-flung radio audiences. Domestic bureaus reporting U.S. news have been closed. Its headquarters and broadcast center, the Cohen Building at the foot of Capitol Hill, has been hollowed out by remote work and a questionable move to an expensive but still unfinished building near the White House.

Further, contrary to popular belief, there is no global VOA network. Its radio and video operations work on an affiliate basis, buying time for their reports from foreign broadcasters who decide what and when to air them. Thus, audience surveys are problematic, and no one knows exactly how many or if any people are actually listening.

Its one truly international service — shortwave radio — has been cut back repeatedly to save money. To boost its signal to span the globe, shortwave requires enormous amounts of electricity, which is expensive. Thus, listeners in hard-to-reach places like Bangladesh have been cut off from the very broadcasts VOA's supporters like to celebrate.

Some time ago, a team of outside journalists was hired to give an independent read on VOA's journalistic content. The findings were never released, suggesting they weren't good. Newsroom crises continue apace. In 2018, 15 staffers in the Nigerian service were fired for taking payments from a government official there. The well-respected chief of the Mandarin Service was removed for airing an interview with a dissident Chinese businessman that had angered Beijing.

Newsroom staff were required to take training to remove bias from their reporting after some disputed broadcasts on the 2016 election. Annual employee surveys by the Office of Personnel Management repeatedly find staff morale among the lowest in government.

Few experienced American journalists speak Farsi, Swahili, Urdu, Cantonese or the other exotic languages in which it broadcasts. Many excellent expat journalists have been hired by the many VOA foreign language services to fill the breach. Some inevitably arrive with their own biases and ethical standards — hence that Nigerian scandal.

For all of President Trump's animosity, Hillary Clinton didn't like VOA much either, dismissing it as "practically defunct" in congressional testimony while secretary of State. President Barack Obama gave the service just one interview in eight years, so irrelevant did he consider it in communicating with the world.

Many here, Democrat and Republican, have tried to shake things up at VOA for years. The terrible thing now is not so much what the Trump administration has done as with how it's been done with a chainsaw approach. If, as many now suspect, VOA may survive in a much trimmed down version under the umbrella of the State Department where it once functioned, after all this, who would want to work there?

Unlike many critical of the service, I reject the urge to shut it down. This country has a story to tell, and a revamped VOA would be the one to tell it in an authoritative and objective manner available nowhere else. Medical advances, technology, American culture in its many flavors, sports features — while soccer is popular in Africa, many there are wild for the NBA — music, U.S. news both good and bad. And yes, the kind of editorials that VOA management now dismiss as propaganda, explaining U.S. foreign policy to overseas audiences eager to know what this country thinks about events in their homelands.

Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and other grantees similarly being purged by the White House do an excellent job of spreading the truth in countries where the media is controlled by authoritarian governments.

That, I believe, is where the real "democracy building" is being done, and the cuts there should be reversed, thus freeing VOA to fulfill its mission as "The Voice of America." In the current media environment, there is no other rationale for U.S. taxpayers to support such a service.

Winston Wood wrote and broadcast editorials over the Voice of America explaining U.S. foreign policy to overseas audiences. He previously served as Washington News Editor of The Wall Street Journal.

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