/2025/09/30/ahead-of-looming-shutdown-voa-fights-to-be-heard/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ahead-of-looming-shutdown-voa-fights-to-be-heard DC Neighborhood Stories from American University Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:02:36 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /2025/09/30/ahead-of-looming-shutdown-voa-fights-to-be-heard/#comment-33897 Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:02:36 +0000 /?p=21317#comment-33897 This article contains some inaccuracies that readers should be made aware of. The Voice of America (VOA) Charter was signed into law on July 12, 1976, not in 1994. While origins of U.S. international broadcasting can be traced back to WWII, saying that VOA began as a “CIA project” isn’t quite right. Audience figures for USAGM/VOA refer to weekly numbers. This piece gives readers the impression that 400 million plus people were somehow consuming the agency’s content every minute of every day. Use of figures on how many “articles” were appearing fails to note the fact that VOA in recent years made increased use of reports by AP, Reuters and other news agencies that were frequently just posted online, all of that at taxpayer expense. This is also a mostly one-sided piece, and fails to fully reflect criticisms of VOA and it’s parent agency over the past two decades, including in congressional hearings. In one such hearing in 2024, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee described a “culture of corruption” at USAGM.

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