Layoff notices were sent Friday to 639 employees of Voice of America and the U.S. agency that oversees it, effectively shutting down the outlet that has provided news to countries around the world since World War II.
They included employees at VOA's Persian-language service who were suddenly called off administrative leave last week to broadcast reports to Iran following Israel's attack. Three journalists working for the Persian service on Friday, who left their office for a cigarette break, had their badges confiscated and weren't allowed back in, according to one fired employee.
In total, some 1,400 people at Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, or 85 of its workforce, have lost their jobs since March, said Kari Lake, Trump's senior advisor to the agency. She said it was part of a "long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy."
"For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that's been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste," Lake said in a news release. "That ends now."
VOA began by broadcasting stories about American democracy to residents of Nazi Germany, and grew to deliver news around the world in dozens of languages, often in countries without a tradition of free press.