USG Broadcasting Not Dead Yet, by Bill Wanlund
Last week, PDCA Update reported on the suit filed against USAGM March 21 by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), arguing that their employees were not Federal workers but independent contractors, and therefore not subject to the mass layoffs instituted by USAGM.
On March 25 District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued a temporary restraining order against USAGM over its termination of RFE/RL’s congressionally appropriated funding. The next day USAGM said it was rescinding its letter terminating RFE/RL’s FY 2025 grant agreement, putting the agreement back in effect. RFE/RL’s lawsuit seeks to ensure that the nonprofit media company receives the approximately $77 million that Congress appropriated to it.
RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said, in effect, trust but verify: “This is an encouraging sign that RFE/RL’s operations will be able to continue, as Congress intended,” Capus said. “We await official confirmation from USAGM that grant funding will promptly resume.”
Meanwhile, VOA employees have targeted USAGM with two suits…so far. On March 21 they filed in U.S. District Court for the New York Southern District, arguing that an Executive Branch entity like USAGM may not eliminate singlehandedly an institution already funded by Congress.
Lead plaintiffs in the case are Patsy Widakuswara, VOA White House bureau chief, and Jessica Jerreat, press freedom editor. Additional plaintiffs include four anonymous “John Does.” Several government unions joined in the suit, including the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA). Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières/Reporters without Borders (RSF/RWB) also joined. As in the RFE/RL case, named defendants are USAGM and its Special Adviser Kari Lake and acting Chief Executive Victor Morales.
VOA Director, Michael Abramowitz, is lead plaintiff on another suit, filed March 25 in US District Court for Washington against USAGM, Lake and Morales. Abramowitz and his co-plaintiffs Anthony Labruto, an English to Africa Service multi-media journalist, and two “J. Does”, both identified as PSC journalists, maintain that USAGM’s “dismantling of VOA” is unlawful.
Abramowitz has said, “Closing down Voice of America would be an incalculable self-inflicted wound for America and deprive the U.S. of a priceless asset.”
Lake, Trump’s favorite to succeed Abramowitz as VOA chief, had described VOA as “like having a rotten fish and trying to find a portion that you can eat.” In a post on X, she said the Agency for Global Media is “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer.”
One USAGM element, Radio-TV Martí (RTM), which broadcasts to Cuba, seems to have procured a reprieve. The Miami Herald reported March 27 that RTM was again on the air, after shutting down two weeks earlier, along with VOA and the other USAGM broadcasters.
The Herald said the Cuban-American National Foundation and other influential members of the Cuban exile community, had called on President Trump “to ‘reconsider his decision’ to dismantle it, saying shutting the station down is a long-cherished desire of the Castro dictatorship.’”
Note to readers: PDCA member John Lennon is providing an email link to current news items pertaining to USG broadcast media in the Trump Administration. Email John at jlennon04@comcast.net if you'd like to be added to the distribution list.
Bill Wanlund is a PDCA Board Member, retired Foreign Service Officer, and freelance writer in the Washington, DC, area. His column, Worth Noting, appears occasionally in the PDCA Update and the PDCA Blog; it seeks to address topics of interest to PDCA members.