For Democracy Activists Around the World, VOA Represented Hope

By broadcasting to the world’s most censored populations, Voice Of America offered a window to the rest of the world

By Liam Scott

For more than eighty years, Voice of America has broadcast independent news to some of the most censored populations around the world, from people living under Nazi rule in Europe to those living under the reign of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the violence of Myanmar’s military.

“The news may be good. The news may be bad,” journalist William Harlan Hale said to Europe in VOA’s first ever broadcast, in 1942. “We shall tell you the truth.”

In the context of VOA’s decades-long history, my time with the U.S.-funded but editorially independent news agency—about four years covering press freedom, first as an intern and later as a staff reporter—was brief.

Nevertheless, what a legacy to be a part of. And what a legacy to come crashing down.

The news agency went dark on March 15, when 1,300 staffers, including myself, were placed on administrative leave. The next day, about 500 contractors, also including myself, were notified that we were being terminated, effective March 31. A March 14 executive order from President Donald Trump had prompted the demolition.

VOA hasn't broadcast new stories to its audience or published on its website in more than one week, but on Friday a group of staffers filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop the dismantling of the outlet. The lawsuit claims the moves to shut down the network were unlawful and unconstitutional. Meanwhile, VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is still broadcasting as it sues over the termination of its grant, and Radio Free Asia is still operating with a significantly reduced staff after its grant was cut.

During my time as a press freedom reporter at VOA, my journalist sources from authoritarian countries around the world told me stories about how they had grown up listening to VOA, RFE/RL or RFA. European lawmakers told me about how their families had secretly listened to VOA broadcasts under Communist rule. In some cases, they still turned to these outlets for the news.

As I reported at VOA over the past few years, the outlet’s massive reach—a weekly audience of more than 350 million people across 49 languages—was sometimes difficult for me to conceptualize.

In the week since VOA was taken off the air, press freedom groups have condemned the move, and I’ve received messages of support from exiled Russian and Belarusian journalists whom I have interviewed over the years. They had fled crackdowns on independent journalists in their home countries, and were now telling me they were shocked by what was happening to VOA and its sister outlets, which are also in the throes of being dismantled.

For generations of Belarusians, “Voice of America was an extremely important source of information about Belarus,” Natalia Belikova, the head of international cooperation at Press Club Belarus, told me. In countries like Belarus, where it’s all but impossible for independent media to operate, VOA and its sister outlets delivered the news—not only about the respective country, but also about the rest of the world.

“We don’t really have the capacity to do it on our own,” Belikova said about delivering international news in particular. That’s where VOA and RFE/RL, another trusted source of news among Belarusians, came in, she said.

After a short post-Soviet period of relative freedom, the Belarusian government and its longtime leader, President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, again turned toward repression. “When Belarus made a U-turn and was gradually becoming an authoritarian regime, then the importance of this news source grew more and more,” said Belikova, who is now based in Warsaw.

In countries where the government controls the news, VOA and its sister outlets have been at the frontlines of the fight against authoritarianism. Its weapons aren’t propaganda, but rather truthful, fact-based reporting.

Growing up in Myanmar, journalist Myint Kyaw recalls how his father listened to broadcasts from VOA and the BBC nearly every day. Without reliable access to the internet in Myanmar until 2010, people like Myint Kyaw relied on short wave radio to listen to VOA and later Radio Free Asia, which was established in 1996.

“The news that passed through the strict censorship system within the country often didn’t reflect the true events or facts. As a result, the Myanmar public turned to international outlets like BBC, RFA and VOA to get accurate information,” said Myint Kyaw, who fled Myanmar for Thailand after the 2021 military coup.

These broadcasts delivered independent news on Myanmar, but they also served as a window to international democracy movements and other news from around the world, he said.

“Only by listening to these radio stations could we get a comprehensive understanding of what was happening,” he told me.

For populations around the world, these broadcasts offered an independent account of what was happening in their countries—and a peek into an outside world that their authoritarian governments didn’t really want them to see. For democracy activists and dissidents, the broadcasts offered hope and a reassurance that they weren’t alone.

Perhaps nothing better embodies that hope and commitment to a free press than the staffers and contributors who have done the work at great personal risk.

Two VOA contributors remain imprisoned in Myanmar and Vietnam—in addition to eight other journalists with RFE/RL and RFA who are imprisoned around the world for doing their jobs in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia, Russian-occupied Crimea and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, dozens of VOA staffers in Washington are on J-1 visas and are at risk of being forced to return to countries whose governments have histories of imprisoning journalists, like Russia. Some RFA staffers are in similar situations.

“I don’t know if the decision-makers are really thinking about that,” said Michael Caster, head of the China program at the free expression group Article 19. “There’s a lot of elements here that are very concerning.”

Their commitment to a free press brought them to these news outlets in the first place, he said. Now they risk persecution because of it.

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Liam Scott is an award-winning journalist who covered press freedom and disinformation for Voice of America from 2021 to 2025. He has also reported and written for outlets including Foreign Policy, the Columbia Journalism Review, New Lines, The Diplomat and Coda Story. He received his bachelor's degree from Georgetown University, where he served as executive editor of the student newspaper The Hoya.