A US federal judge on Tuesday ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt efforts to shut down Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the news broadcasts of which are funded by the government to export US values to the world.
US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits from employees and contractors affected by the shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts.
USAGM placed more than 1,000 employees on leave and told 600 contractors they would be terminated after the agency abruptly shut down the broadcasts last month.
Photo: Reuters
The ruling was a “significant victory for press freedom,” said Andrew Celli, an attorney representing VOA employees in the lawsuits.
VOA was founded to combat Nazi propaganda at the height of World War II, and has become a major international media broadcaster.
The US Congress has funded and authorized the broadcasts to provide an “accurate, objective and comprehensive” source of news in other nations and export the “cardinal American values of free speech, freedom of the press and open debate,” Lamberth wrote.
Congress made the broadcasts mandatory and did not allow the executive branch to unilaterally terminate or defund them, he ruled.
Lamberth rejected USAGM’s arguments in court that it had not made a “final decision” on the future of the broadcasts and that the lawsuits should be handled as a series of “employment disputes” with terminated workers.
“It strains credulity to conclude the USAGM is ‘still standing’ when its 80-year-old flagship news service, VOA, has gone completely dark with no signs of returning,” Lamberth wrote.
During a hearing, the judge asked several questions of US lawyers probing US President Donald Trump’s statements indicating that VOA’s news coverage was too critical of the US and of him personally.
“I thought that one of the strengths of Voice of America was that it had the nerve to tell the truth about America,” Lamberth said.
Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA, said the media rights group was “very pleased” with the decision on VOA and other outlets.
“Every day they’re off the air is a gift to authoritarian regimes that forbid the free press, like China and Iran,” he said.
Separately, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, the storied US primetime current affairs show, on Tuesday resigned, blaming attacks on his independence in the past few months after Trump last year sued the program, accusing it of manipulating an interview with his Democratic rival, former US vice president Kamala Harris.
“Over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it. To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience,” Bill Owens, a veteran journalist on the show, wrote in an e-mail to his team seen by Agence France-Presse.
The row has intensified against a backdrop of CBS News’ parent company Paramount seeking to merge with Skydance, which must first be approved by the US Federal Communications Commission.
Additional reporting by AFP
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