Tag Archives: Voice of America

USAGM’s Official Announcement on Agency Downsizing and Workforce Reductions

Curtain Antennas at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station

Following an earlier report from NPR covering (and other sources) the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s restructuring, this is the full official announcement from USAGM. It outlines the agency’s efforts to comply with an executive order aimed at reducing non-statutory functions, cutting costs, and downsizing operations:

USAGM, Senior Advisor Kari Lake cancels obscenely expensive 15-year-lease that burdened the taxpayers and enforces Trump’s Executive Order to drastically downsize agency (USAGM)

Today, in compliance with President Trump’s Executive Order titled, Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, dated March 14, 2025, the US Agency for Global Media initiated measures to eliminate the non-statutory components and functions to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law. USAGM and the outlets it oversees will be reduced to their statutory functions and associated personnel will be reduced to the minimum presence and function required by law.

This action will impact the agency’s workforce at USAGM, Voice of America, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and all Grantees. Most USAGM staff affected by this action will be placed on paid-administrative leave beginning Saturday, March 15, 2025, and remain on leave until further notice.

“While at USAGM, I vow to fully implement President Trump’s executive orders in his mission to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Today we continue the process of doing that by streamlining our operations to what is statutorily required by law,” said USAGM Senior Adviser, Kari Lake. “The US Agency for Global media will continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview and shed everything that is not statutorily required. I fully support the President’s executive order. Waste, fraud, and abuse run rampant in this agency and American taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund it.”

A few of the most egregious findings:

- Massive national security violations, including spies and terrorist sympathizers and/or supporters infiltrating the agency
- Eye-popping self-dealing involving contracts, grants and high-value settlement agreements
- Obscene over-spending including a nearly quarter-of-a-billion-dollar lease for a Pennsylvania Avenue high-rise that has no broadcasting facilities to meet the needs of the agency and included a $9 million commission to a private real estate agent with connections
- $100s-of-millions being spent on fake news companies
- a product that often parrots the talking-points of America’s adversaries

This agency is not salvageable.

From top-to-bottom this agency is a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer—a national security risk for this nation—and irretrievably broken. While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule.

It is unfortunate that the work that was done by self-interested insiders in coordination with outside activist groups and radical Leftist advocacy organizations to “Trump-Proof” the agency made it impossible to reform. In fact, they weren’t just “Trump-Proofing” the agency from political leadership, they were accountability-proofing the agency from the American people. They did all this while spending taxpayer money to create false narratives. These were amplified by biased media counterparts with clear conflicts of interest at the Washington Post, NPR and more, to actively cover up their obscene waste, fraud, and abuse.

“This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States and promoting freedom and democracy. Going forward, I am going to ensure accountability will be the norm and not the exception. I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the Agency and its outlets. I look forward to moving forward with modernizing the core mission of telling America’s story throughout the world in a meaningful, impactful and effective way,” Lake added.

“DOGE Targeting VOA And Radio Free Europe”

DOGE Targeting VOA And Radio Free Europe. (Inside Radio)

Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) are in the sights of Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur appointed by President Donald Trump to oversee the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk commented on a social media post by Richard Grenell, the U.S. Special Envoy for Special Missions, who said the radio networks are “state-owned media” and “are a relic of the past.”

“Yes, shut them down,” Musk wrote in his reply to the post. “Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy). Nobody listens to them anymore. It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.” [Continue reading…]

Update: SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott notes that he wrote the following message and sent it via the Whitehouse contact page:

Mr. President;

First, I am not, and never have been, employed by Voice of America or Radio Free Europe.

But you might want to think twice before you shut them down.

If the electronic networks such as internet and mobile phones are ever shut down, you might want a means of communicating with the populations overseas; you might want to factor that into your decision-making process.

Radio can be an essential resource when the crunch comes, as was demonstrated recently in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee: https://swling.com/blog/2024/11/a-shining-moment-for-ham-radio/

You might want to keep international broadcasting — with appropriate messaging — as “another club in your bag.”

Sincerely, Jock Elliott

USAGM Congressional Budget Justification for 2023

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Lin Robertson, who shares a link to the USAGM Congressional Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2023.

Click here to download the PDF.

If you’re interested in how shortwave services are being affected by the budget, you can do a simple search for the word “shortwave.”

One change of note to the Greenville, NC, transmitting station (page 37):

In FY 2023, USAGM is proposing a realignment of the ERM transmitting station
in Greenville, North Carolina under the USAGM’s Office of Technology, Services,
and Innovation (TSI), which currently is responsible for other of USAGM’s
transmitting stations. The realignment of shortwave resources will effectively
enhance the overall USAGM broadcast mission capabilities by aligning all content
distribution platforms as managed by TSI. This action will decrease OCB’s general
operating expenses by approximately $2.1 million annually

This is a 197 page document and traditional over-the-air services are mentioned frequently.

If you notice relevant points to shortwave services feel free to point them out in the comments and note the page number! Thank you!

Radio Waves: State of VOA Broadcast Infrastructure, Amish Weather Radio, 96.7 FM, Australia Calling, and MAME Showcase Gerät 32620 Emulator

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Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Where VOA’s Broadcast Infrastructure Stands Today (Radio World)

Shortwave retains a role in serving particularly difficult-to-reach audiences

Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and its simultaneous blocking of Western media outlets has renewed public interest in shortwave radio broadcasters like the federally funded Voice of America.

Now managed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media or USAGM, VOA’s roots go back to 1941, when the U.S. government leased a dozen commercial broadcaster owned/operated shortwave radio transmitters for the VOA’s predecessor, the U.S. Foreign Information Service. (These shortwave transmitters were previously used by U.S. broadcasters to share content between their AM radio stations.)

The VOA came into being in 1942. It played a major role in broadcasting U.S. news and views to the world during World War Two and the Cold War. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, shifting government priorities, the emergence of platforms competing with shortwave, and budget cuts led to VOA’s language services, broadcasts and programming being reduced.

Today, “USAGM operates transmitting stations around the world, including in the U.S., Africa, Europe and Asia,” Laurie Moy, USAGM’s director of public affairs said in an email earlier this year.

“All of these stations are equipped with multiple shortwave transmitters, and four of these stations have a medium-wave (AM) transmitter each. In total, USAGM’s network consists of about 75 shortwave (ranging from 100 to 250 kW) and medium-wave (ranging from 100 to 1000 kW) transmitters.”

The agency also has access to shortwave and medium-wave transmitters via leases and exchange agreements with other broadcasters.

At present, USAGM produces content in 63 languages, 35 of which are aired on shortwave and medium-wave. VOA itself produces content in 48 languages, 18 of which are aired on shortwave and medium-wave.

“In terms of the agency’s shortwave network, shortwave continues to reach particularly difficult-to-reach audiences, such as in North Korea, western China, Afghanistan and elsewhere,” Moy told Radio World. [Continue reading…]

How do you find out about tornadoes if your religion doesn’t allow TVs or smartphones? (Courier and Press)

If a tornado or flash flood is imminent, most Americans find out about it through a smartphone or a television.

But as the National Weather Service was reminded in the wake of the deadly Dec. 10, 2021 Kentucky tornado, one segment of the population uses neither of those things: the Amish, who shun technology.

As meteorologists studied damage in the days that followed that storm, which killed 80 people and damaged hundreds of homes, they encountered an Amish community in Ohio County, Kentucky, and asked: How do you get severe weather information?

“They basically said they listen for the weather sirens from town,” said Derrick Snyder, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But as loud as storm sirens are, not everyone is close enough to hear.

A solution may be on the way, as the agency teams with a national radio maker as part of the Weather Awareness for a Rural Nation initiative. Snyder and other meteorologists are part of a project developing weather radios that will be both effective in relaying information immediately, but also acceptable for the Amish lifestyle.

It will be a stripped-down, hand-crank model with absolutely no modern amenities. Continue reading →

Seeking recordings of VOA broadcaster Billy Brown

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I received the following inquiry from Neal Lavon via the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contact form. Check out Neal’s request below and if you have any information or leads that might help him, please comment.

Neal writes:

I am working on a project about a Voice of America broadcaster from 1952-54 named Billy Brown. He was a 16 year-old kid who launched a Pen Pals club by speaking on a Voice of America broadcast to the Near East, particularly Pakistan.

The announcements were so successful they generated hundreds of responses and led to him getting a 15-minute weekly radio program on VOA in English that was later translated into Urdu. The programs were broadcast on Friday nights at 1530 GMT on 17750, 16.90; 15130, 19.30. The relay were TAN 17780 16.87 15230 19.70, and Colombo 15120 19.84. At least, I think those are the frequencies; it comes as close as I can get it.

So far, I have not been able to find any surviving tapes of this broadcast at the National Archives or the Library of Congress. The family does not have any tapes. So I am wondering, hope against hope, if somehow, somewhere, someone in the region or someone else might have a copy of this. I would greatly appreciate it.

Neal Lavon, Takoma Park, Maryland, former VOA Staffer.

This would have been in the very early days of home recording so I imagine it might be difficult to find audio from Billy Brown’s broadcasts. If you have any leads, please comment.

Radio Waves: Shortwave Secret Weapon, Russian Propaganda in Kansas City, Crisis Radio, and Tape Measure Antenna,

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Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Opinion | Our Secret Weapon Against Putin Isn’t So Secret (Politico)

We already know a lot about how to break through the Kremlin’s wall of silence.

As has been so often stated, the war in Ukraine is, in large measure, an information war — a battle for hearts and minds. Some news outlets have been doing a brilliant job by using their own reporters as well as pictures and videos from social media, carefully vetted for accuracy, to show the horror of the assault by Russia, the bravery of the people of Ukraine and the generosity of people everywhere, especially in the neighboring countries which are absorbing millions of refugees.

Tragically, most of this news has been blocked out of Russia itself.

The government has closed down the few remaining independent newspapers such as Novaya Gazeta and the Moscow Times. President Vladimir Putin signed a law that calls for sentences of up to 15 years in prison for people who distribute “false news” about the Russian military. CNN, Bloomberg, CBS, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and German ARD and ZDF have suspended reporting from inside Russia in response. Russia has shut down social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram that some Russians used to access news.

It might seem like Russians have been shut off from all information except Putin-controlled state media — but they haven’t. The West has a lot of practice breaking through the wall of silence the Kremlin has reerected. To win the information war, we need to revamp the tools we already have in our information war arsenal.

Those include Western news services that broadcast into Russia via a range of technologies. The BBC World Service’s Russian broadcasts have played an important role, as have the Russian language services of Germany and France. But perhaps the most important and effective services are the Voice of America (which was created in 1942 to combat German propaganda) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (which was created to combat Soviet propaganda during the Cold War). Both are produced by the United States Agency for Global Media. As a group, these U.S.-funded journalists reach a weekly audience of about 400 million people in 62 languages.

Since the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both VOA and RFE/RL have recorded record-breaking traffic despite efforts by the Russian government to block access to their programs. Independent digital analytics reports have verified that there have already been more than 1 billion video views of their Russian language content. [Continue reading…]

Low-budget Missouri radio station continues airing Russian state radio programming (Market Watch)

ASSOCIATED PRESS, LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) — A man who runs a little-known, low-budget radio station in suburban Kansas City says he is standing up for free speech and alternative viewpoints when he airs Russian state-sponsored programming in the midst of the Ukrainian war.

Radio Sputnik, funded by the Russian government, pays broadcast companies in the U.S. to air its programs. Only two do so: One is Peter Schartel’s company in Liberty, Mo., and one is in Washington, D.C. Continue reading →

How VOA’s Communications World Started

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, for the following guest post:

Dan Robinson

How VOA’s Communications World Started

by Dan Robinson

NOTE: This exclusive is being published simultaneously with the North American Shortwave Association (NASWA) journal in its March 2022 edition.

Voice of America recently observed its 80th birthday. Readers may recall that in the mid-1980’s into the 2000s, VOA broadcast a program about communications, but which was in fact designed specifically for shortwave listeners.

Communications World as it was known owed its existence to my efforts in the late 1970’s and into the early 1980’s to persuade VOA managers to put such a program on the air, The story is told in detail here for the first time.

In a SWL career that began in the late 1960’s, I was an enthusiastic consumer of DX programs broadcast by stations at the time, from Radio Netherlands to HCJB and others. I always wondered why VOA wasn’t among them, and I was determined to make some progress on this.

First steps came in 1975 as I was attending The American University and began making contacts at VOA in downtown Washington, DC. This would become a multi-year effort to induce VOA to re-start a DX’ing program. I say “re-start” because I would later learn that VOA once had such a program, but aimed at radio amateurs.

These early efforts included at one point a meeting with the head of a major think tank on K Street in Washington. I can only imagine their reaction when two college age kids (I was accompanied by ace DX’er Taylor “Pitt” McNeil) arrived seeking help in selling a federal agency on a hobbyist show.

I never learned whether anything came from that meeting. In my final two college years, I interned with ABC News, where I observed network operations, including the evening news with Frank Reynolds, and also interned with local station WASH-FM.

By 1979, my contacts at VOA had led me to part-time work in its English to Africa, Worldwide English, and central news divisions. In 1980, I was formally sworn in as a full-time VOA news writer. My objective was to become a VOA foreign correspondent, which I would achieve in 1983. But putting VOA back on the board, so to speak, with a SWL program remained high on my priority list.

A pilot for the show needed to be produced. It needed a name. What came to mind was something containing the word communications, to have wider appeal. So, there it was: the VOA Communications Magazine.

My time in VOA’s central news operation included work on all three shifts over 24 hours. On the side, I set about putting together a script for VOA Communications Magazine – conceptualizing what elements would go into it. By 1983 – just before I departed for Nairobi as VOA’s new East Africa correspondent – we were ready to record the pilot.

The show began by recognizing World Communications Year, and a message noting that we would cover SW hobby news, international broadcasting developments, satellites and computers, news about receivers and antennas, along with letters from listeners.

WRNO New Orleans had gone on the air on shortwave. I thought that would make an interesting segment. Shortwave broadcasting had not yet started its downward slide. Stations remained on the air in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Transmitter manufacturers still had customers. New stations were coming on air.

I served as host of the Communications Magazine pilot. Bob Arnold, who was doing science reporting for VOA at the time, voiced a roundup of broadcasting news. Included were some of my personal recordings, including Voice of Kenya and Radio Mozambique.

In the news, Kenya was reported planning international broadcasting (we now know this never happened). Ghana was expanding domestic radio. The U.S. was helping Liberia expand rural radio. We noted ELBC and ELWA, and played a recording of ELWA.

Iran was installing what were expected to be the world’s most powerful transmitters. There was news from Singapore, and a recording of Radio Singapore. Malaysia planned two 500 kw transmitters. I noted existing domestic Malaysian stations, and included a recording of Radio Malaysia Sarawak.

Arnold reported on the explosion of the production, distribution and storage of information, including an interview with Wilson Dizard, then with Georgetown University.

Dipping into the mailbag I read letters and reception reports from VOA listeners in Denmark, Sweden (one of whom used a Grundig 3400 receiver), Australia (who used a Panasonic RF-2800), and Japan (who used a Kenwood R-1000).

My interview with Joseph Costello of WRNO concluded the pilot, and began with a recording I had made of a WRNO test transmission. Costello pointed to “a couple of thousand pieces of mail per month,” and surprising response from New Zealand and Australia, though WRNO’s signal was beamed northward.

Private shortwave stations were granted to reflect the culture and lifestyle of the United States, Costello said. By partially simulcasting WRNO-FM, listeners heard about life in New Orleans, with coverage of the Jazz and Heritage Festival, and progress reports on Mardi Gras. WRNO was considering a morning Spanish service beamed to central and south America

Doug Flodin of Drake-Chenault discussed the purpose of KYOI. And we reported on other shortwave broadcasters preparing to go to air, including Radio Miami International, and KNLS from Alaska.

Based on my pilot for VOA Communications Magazine, VOA green lighted what would become Communications World, hosted first by Gene Reich, who later would join Worldspace, the satellite radio pioneer that filed for bankruptcy in 2008, and later by Kim Elliott.

This is the first time I have told the in depth story of how Communications World came into being, which likely never would have existed had it not been for my efforts to bring this kind of program to Voice of America. The full 1983 pilot for Communications World is available on the Internet Archive and below: