In March this year, the Trump administration effectively shuttered the Voice of America, a broadcasting vehicle for the selective promotion of US policy and culture for over eight decades.  Nearly all of its 1,300 staff of producers, journalists and assistants, including those working at the US Agency for Global Media, were placed on administrative leave.  Kari Lake, President Donald Trump’s appointment to lead the Voice, was unflattering about that “giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer.”  Last month, Lake confirmed that layoff notices had been sent to 639 employees.

The motivations for attacking VOA were hardly budgetary.  The White House cited a number of sources to back the claim that the organisation had become an outlet of “radical propaganda.”  VOA veteran Dan Robinson features, calling it “a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting leftist bias aligned with partisan national media.”  The Daily Caller moaningly remarks that VOA reporters had “repeatedly posted anti-Trump comments on their professional Twitter accounts, despite a social media policy requiring employee impartiality on social media platforms.”  The Voice, not aligned with MAGA, had to be silenced.

The measure by Trump drew its inevitable disapproval.  VOA director, Michael Abramowitz, stuck to the customary line that his organisation “promotes freedom and democracy........

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