Issue:
April 2025 | Cover story
The Trump administration has fired the first salvos in its battle of wills with sections of the U.S. media
Much has transpired since the U.S. presidential election in November and the inauguration of Donald Trump in January. The last four months have been a non-stop news spigot, with American designs on Greenland and Canada, Trump’s public-dressing down of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a bizarre plan to turn Gaza into a holiday resort, and brutal tariffs due to go into effect this month. Yet, in many ways the past three months have been defined by the government’s pugilistic approach to mainstream journalists and media organizations.
Some have asserted that the Trump victory was a repudiation of the legacy media, reflecting a greater embrace of social media – particularly MAGA-inspired influencers – as well as a reflection of the nation’s deep polarization. However, actions taken by the Trump administration, such as the February 11 ban on the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One, because the news agency refused to recognize the “renaming” of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, have gone beyond favouring particular journalists or media organizations. They have resulted in legal action and, in some instances, threats to the organizations’ very existence.
In response, the AP filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration to lift the ban. In a statement, the Columbia Journalism School said: “The White House ban against The Associated Press is an assault on the First Amendment and undermines the free press in the United States. News organizations should not be penalized or barred from covering public events and officials in retaliation for editorial decisions. Denying access to working journalists as punishment for editorial standards sets a terrible precedent. Columbia Journalism School stands with The Associated Press and other press organizations in calling for their access to be restored.”
The Pentagon also asked the Washington Post, CNN, the Hill, and Warzone to leave their office space to be replaced by the pro-Trump Newsmax, Daily Caller, Free Press, and Washington Examiner. In addition, the New York Times, NBC News, National Public Radio, and Politico, have been asked to cede space to Breitbart News, the New York Post, HuffPost, and the One America News Network. A Defense Department spokesperson said these purported office rotational moves were designed to “ensure that other outlets will enjoy the same opportunity to cover our nation’s finest”.
The changes to the press pool arrangement drew criticism from CNN media analyst Brian Stelter: “At the White House, and at key agencies like the Defense Department, the plan is obvious: Punish traditional journalists who ask tough questions and promote a parallel universe of pro-Trump media outlets.” Words and deeds involving traditional media have gone beyond acrimony. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has cited the lies “pushed by many legacy media outlets” about Trump, while the president himself is suing CBS News’ 60 Minutes program for $10 billion for how it edited a pre-election interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. A separate lawsuit is under way against the Des Moines Register for an inaccurate pre-election Iowa election poll.
Meanwhile, the new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr launched investigations into CBS, ABC, and NBC for election-related content and equal time. Before the election, two major newspapers, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, separately reversed years of presidential candidate endorsement at the direction of their billionaire owners. This has sparked concern that traditional media, facing lawsuits and actions to limit their access, will bow to Trump’s will rather than hold him and his colleagues to account.
Perhaps the starkest demonstration of what is at stake is the predicament facing the U.S. government-funded Voice of America. On March 15, staff were emailed that they were being immediately locked out amid indefinite mass suspensions. This affected some 1,350 staff, including former FCCJ President Steve Herman.
The government decided to defund the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent agency overseeing VOA, the country’s oldest international broadcaster with around 3,500 employees and a budget last year of $886 million. The 83-year-old VOA and its sister networks reached hundreds of millions of people in more than 100 countries. A lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by its reporters, unions, and Reporters without Borders (RSF) on March 22, accusing the Trump administration of unlawful shutdown.
Herman was singled out on February 28 after an executive order was signed by Trump that called for those perceived as disloyal to U.S. foreign policy to face suspension or loss of access to federal services. I contacted Steve to discuss what had happened at VOA. When we spoke via email, he had not been fired or relieved of his title, but was on indefinite excused absence. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.
In Tokyo, you worked for VOA among other news agencies. How did your Tokyo role serve VOA's audience in North Asia or around the globe?
During my time in Tokyo I became a contract reporter for VOA before departing Japan in 2007 to take a staff role as VOA's South Asia bureau chief, based in New Delhi. VOA had opened and closed its Tokyo bureau several times and when the regional bureau was finally moved to Seoul I became the primary reporter in Japan.
There was a strong appetite back then for stories from Japan in the first years of the 21st century. I probably did several radio stories a week. These reports, besides airing on VOA English language newscasts, were translated into dozens of other languages for use by our other services. In North Asia our primary target markets were China and North Korea. Until mid-March, VOA's weekly unique audience was 326 million people across nearly 50 languages. VOA traditionally ranked as the largest international broadcaster in terms of reach and language diversity.
Your position in Washington was VOA's Chief National Correspondent. What did that mean for your beat and coverage responsibilities? In the first Trump administration were there signs that VOA or you were in the crosshairs?
During the first Trump administration, I became VOA's White House bureau chief. Near the end of that administration. I was in the crosshairs. This has been fairly well publicized, and I go into some detail in my book Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist's Story of Covering the President – and Why It Matters. (Kent State University Press, 2024). I think there's a copy in the FCCJ library.
In the past few years, I was chief national correspondent after a detail with VOA's standards & practices unit. After the retirement of our chief political correspondent, I found myself mostly covering the presidential campaign. After Trump was elected for a second time, I was told to focus only on U.S.-China stories in line with new priorities of the VOA director.
What was the timeline for events coming for VOA and you personally?
Things started happening prior to the inauguration and after the 2024 presidential election. For the first time in my VOA career, a story of mine was spiked after it had gone through four editors and was briefly posted to the web. That story was about Marco Rubio being nominated for secretary of state. A top manager apparently didn't like the lead and one paragraph in the body. But instead of asking for changes, the story was killed, and editors hemmed and hawed about what really happened. I protested, and then the copy was released after the lead was watered down and one paragraph in the body of the story excised.
Other correspondents noted their copy and headlines were being softened, in an apparent attempt to not cause potential offense to the president-elect or his supporters. I also came under investigation by our parent agency, USAGM, for alleged comments I made on a VOA radio and TV program deemed to be "speculative" and "analytical". I protested that USAGM had no right to investigate our journalistic content, because the parent agency is on the other side of the firewall. Let's just say this all added up to what was considered anticipatory obedience before any of the new administration's political appointees arrived at our parent agency.
You were notified slightly before some 1,300 colleagues that you had been placed on excused absence through an executive order signed by the President. What did it say?
I was suddenly suspended – with pay – on February 28. This time I was told my social media activity was under investigation by VOA (not USAGM). I had days prior to that when I caught wind of the issue, told the VOA director, the chief operating officer, and two editors that I welcomed VOA investigating my online activity, because I was confident that I had not violated any internal standards.
The suspension letter cited an executive order of Trump's from February 12: One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations. It contains language stating that "Failure to faithfully implement the President’s (foreign) policy is grounds for professional discipline, including separation."
I am a foreign service officer, not under the State Department, but under VOA/USAGM. However, VOA's charter and firewall make clear our editorial independence from any executive branch interference. All colleagues were suspended on March 15, effectively silencing the VOA for the first time in its 83-year history. They were not accused of any wrongdoing.
A lawsuit has been filed by some VOA staff, and plaintiffs include foreign staff whose visas are being cancelled and must leave the country in 30 days. Reporters without Borders is also suing. Why is RSF involved?
I can’t speak on behalf of RSF, but can assure you my colleagues are heartened by its support. It's an extremely serious matter that our nearly 50 J-1 visa holders are going to have to leave the country. About a half dozen conceivably could be jailed if they return to their home countries because of hostility toward the United States and/or their reporting.
Do you see VOA shutting down? VOA has a charter and broadcasts in many countries and languages. Can any commercial or public enterprise step up?
VOA has already shut down. It's beyond an existential crisis now. Even if USAGM decides on its own or is forced to restore part or all of VOA, you have to wonder how difficult it'll be to build up those audiences again. In the meantime, the vacuum is going to be filled by voices from Beijing and Moscow. I am skeptical of any rescue from outside, as this is an operation spending several hundred million dollars a year. Much of what we do, such as news in Tibetan or educational programs for the Rohingya in refugee camps in Bangladesh, isn't commercially viable. I believe the Czech government is pitching the EU on funding RFE/RL, not VOA.
I technically remain employed by VOA, which has made clear that I should not be offering any analysis, let alone opinions. I am keeping people posted on my social media, especially: https://substack.com/@newsguy.
Looking at VOA, Kari Lake, a far-right former broadcaster who was selected by Trump to run the organization, said its closure would save an estimated $53 million. “We should not be paying outside news organizations to tell us what the news is,” she said, according to the Guardian.
Many global media reacted with horror, but Chinese state media welcomed the decision to slash government funding to media organizations such as Radio Free Asia and VOA.
The Global Times, an English-language tabloid and mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, said in an editorial: “When it comes to China-related reporting, VOA has an appalling track record. From smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang … to hyping up disputes in the South China Sea … from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative to promoting the claim of China’s ‘overcapacity’, almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it.” Other state media echoed Beijing’s disdain.
The assault on traditional media continued late last month following revelations that air strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, discussed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and other senior officials on the encrypted messaging app Signal, had been seen by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who had been invited to the Signal chat group.
Trump said there was nothing to see, claiming he knew nothing about the security breach. Then he let the invective flow: “I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic; to me it’s a magazine that is going out of business.”
That set the tone for comments from other officials.
After claiming that the group chat had not included classified information, Hegseth launched an attack on Goldberg, whom he described as a “discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes”.
And when asked by Martha Kelner, the US correspondent for Sky News in the UK, if Hegseth should resign, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene responded: “I don’t give a crap about your opinion or your reporting.”
Dan Sloan is president of the FCCJ. He joined the club in 1994 and previously served as president in 2004 and 2005-06. He reported for Knight-Ridder and Reuters for nearly two decades.
