Save Voice of America

We are writing to spread awareness to Gazette readers of the wonderful resource we have in Voice of America (https://www.voanews.com/).

Funded by the US government since World War 2 as a tool to combat Nazi propaganda, journalists of VOA publish daily articles and videos of news from all over the world. In its 1976 charter signed by President Ford, VOA’s first amendment rights have been explicitly protected by a “firewall” between it and political interference.

Voice of America Learning English (https://learningenglish.voanews.com/) a division of VOA for those wishing to learn English, provides news articles and videos specifically aimed at teaching English to learners of varying levels of language competencies.

As volunteers for a local nonprofit literacy program, we use the resources of VOA to teach English as a second language to international adults in our community. It provides reliable and up-to-date information about current news, education trends, climate knowledge, American culture, literature, music, science, technology, and American history as well as English vocabulary, grammar, and idioms for our students. A regular feature about news literacy discusses how to think critically about news sources. VOA Learning English also supplies preparation material for those wishing to become US citizens.

For a minimum government investment of $265 million annually, the United States spreads valuable goodwill worldwide. That’s a small price to pay for journalism that is trustworthy, authoritative, and accurate.

However, Keri Lake, President Trump’s choice to lead VOA, is an election denier and Trump loyalist, and she has vowed to make it into a political propaganda arm of the American government. Such a move would push VOA journalists to promote government statements as fact and without criticism.

We urge readers to explore this valuable source and try to imagine what would become of it if it were forced to report, as if true, such statements as Trump’s claim that Ukraine started the war against Russia!

Please write to Congress and insist that it fight to maintain VOA’s autonomy from political interference.

Sincerely,

Denise Heikinen, Jill Burkland, Randy Freisinger, Jan Handler, Mary Brunet

Houghton