US President Donald Trump's shutdown of US media outlet Voice of America, or VOA, has had a particularly strong impact in countries like Turkey where press freedom has long been under threat.

As a result of the Trump administration's defunding of the US government-funded international news service on March 14, the organization has effectively ceased operations. News websites in all languages have not been updated for more than two months. Broadcasts on television and radio have either stopped completely or switched to music-only programming.

Before suspending service, VOA, which was often one of the rare sources of uncensored news in countries like Turkey, broadcast in 49 languages to a weekly audience estimated at 354 million people worldwide.

Turkey, where approximately 90% of major media outlets are government-controlled, banned access to the Turkish-language website of VOA in 2022, alongside all language versions of Deutsche Welle, or DW. Since then, VOA had been trying to reach its audience in Turkey via a "mirror" website that reproduced the content of the original platform — until Trump shuttered the broadcaster completely in mid-March.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, ranks Turkey 159th out of 180 countries in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index, citing

© Deutsche Welle