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
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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.
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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.
I'm apparently still the chief national correspondent of the Voice of America and a former VOA White House bureau chief and author. of the nonfiction book Behind the White House Curtain, which goes into some of the stuff that we're going to talk about today, dealing with the challenges VOA faced in the first Trump administration.
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