Now that Trump has silenced Voice of America, could U.S. public media outlets be next?

Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order silencing the Voice of America, the venerable global news service. His administration then placed 1,300 journalists on "administrative leave."  On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump loyalist, is chairing a hearing of "The Doge Subcommittee" of the House Oversight Committee on the future fate of federal support for public media in America, including both National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.

For most of its 360 million listeners in 50 languages, the VOA radio and web service and its sister organizations are a primary source of independent news and information in countries that lack a free press, including Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and parts of Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The decision is a disturbing and self-defeating retreat for American influence abroad. It also portends ever more troubling repression of independent journalism right here in the United States.

To best appreciate what is at stake in a future without VOA, it is important to understand its past. What became VOA began in 1942 as a shortwave radio service, broadcasting in German behind enemy lines.

As America’s interest in advancing the cause of freedom grew, so, too, did its global news ambitions. The service now branded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty became a principal vehicle for delivering news behind the "Iron Curtain" during the Cold War.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting launched after the Cuban missile crisis, Radio Free Asia after Beijing’s assault on protesters in Tiananmen Square and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks after 9/11.

Until last weekend, each of these services operated under direct supervision or with grants from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

These news services depended not only on congressionally mandated funding and editorial independence but also the courage of hundreds of journalists and sources operating often at great personal risk.

Journalists, producers and local fixers in-country now stand abandoned by the U.S.

U.S.-based foreign nationals — native Russian, Farsi, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Spanish speakers — may face deportation if their J-1 visas are revoked, with potentially dire consequences at home. Nine USAGM or affiliate employees who are currently jailed may be abandoned.

As recently as a few weeks ago, Trump officials placed nominally in charge of the future of VOA were calling for its fundamental reform rather than its wholesale destruction.

Trump announced in January that Kari Lake, a former Phoenix local television anchor and onetime Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, was to lead VOA, pending formal appointment.

Lake promoted the idea that VOA needed new leadership, voice and mission. The Trump executive order seemed to make clear the administration’s decision to burn it down, rather than spruce it up. Lake pivoted to describe USAGM as “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer,” deeming the 83-year-old VOA service "unsalvageable."

Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr have also made no secret of their antipathy for U.S. public media in all its forms: NPR, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides funding to NPR, PBS, and local public stations for news programming, technology and general operating support.

Like VOA and its allied organizations, these news enterprises are mandated by Congress to operate with editorial independence, but each has been the target of long-standing conservative criticism. Each is highly vulnerable if the recent executive action against VOA is upheld, given their similar regulatory status and congressional protections.

As was the case with the VOA, and its parent agency, Trump officials have called most recently for the reform of U.S. public media, although many Republicans in Congress have long sought its wholesale defunding. At Wednesday's hearing, which both PBS CEO Paula Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher have been called to testify, we will send a clear signal how the Trump administration and their congressional allies intend to attack public media and how these media will defend themselves.

If past is prologue, the Trump administration may decide it is better to try to destroy public news media that offends the president’s sensibility rather than recast or rebuild it. If so, the implications for U.S. public media are dire indeed.

Thankfully, most NPR and PBS stations in America operate with multiple revenue streams, including local support. CPB’s federal funding is typically on the order of 10%-20% of a given station’s income, although its benefits are most pronounced in support of signature news programming like "Frontline," "PBS NewsHour," "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered,"
and the proportion of federal support is greatest for smaller stations in more rural areas.

The domestic threat to U.S. public media has become even more apparent as the administration chooses to shutter American media abroad. In silencing VOA, Trump could hardly have broadcast his intentions more loudly.

Jim Friedlich is CEO and executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the nonprofit organization that owns The Philadelphia Inquirer. @jimfriedlich

This essay originally appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer. For more news and commentary from Philly, visit Inquirer.com.

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