Tag: journalists

  • The silencing of America’s voice leaves journalists abandoned

    The silencing of America’s voice leaves journalists abandoned

    On 28 March, several journalists in South Asia opened their inboxes and found messages that changed their lives. Reporting assignments were cancelled. Email access revoked. For many, it marked the end of years of work with Voice of America — without explanation, without notice.

    Nazir Ahmad is a journalist. For 11 years, Ahmad worked for Voice of America as a multimedia journalist. He documented protests, crackdowns and mass detentions. That morning, his email account was suspended. His press card was no longer valid.

    “It ended without warning,” he said. “No notice, no call. Just a message that my services were no longer needed. I had been filing reports even a week before this.”

    Nazir Ahmad is not his real name. We changed it for this article to protect his identity. And we offered anonymity to all the journalists we interviewed for this story because their reporting for Voice of America has put them in danger. 

    Ahmad is one of several South Asian journalists who lost their jobs after the Trump administration signed an executive order to downsize multiple U.S. government agencies, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America.

    On 22 April, a federal district judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that the administration illegally required Voice of America to cease operations and ordered it be temporarily restored until the lawsuits challenging the closure have run their course. How this will affect Ahmad and the other reporters who were dismissed remains to be seen. 

    Shutting down a news network

    The Trump Administration’s decision to end Voice of America affected journalists across Asia who have been covering sensitive political developments for years.

    “I covered the Delhi riots, Punjab farmers’ protests, and the elections,” said another Voice of America journalist. “These were not easy stories. I often worked without backup and sometimes without formal protection. Now, I’m being told to stop working.”

    Trump’s executive order resulted in mass administrative leave across Voice of America’s global network. Michael Abramowitz, Voice of America’s director, confirmed that nearly all 1,300 journalists and staff were placed on leave.

    The White House said the order was intended to reduce government spending and eliminate what it called “radical propaganda.” It accused outlets like Voice of America of political bias, despite decades of bipartisan support for the agency.

    For many South Asian journalists, the move came at a personal and professional cost. Several freelancers and stringers in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had worked with Voice of America for over a decade. 

    Telling important stories to the world

    Besides reporting on protests, these reporters covered elections, environmental disasters and rights violations in hard-to-reach areas.

    “I reported from Punjab’s border villages during the height of the farmers’ protests,” said yet another journalist who worked with Voice of America since 2014. “I was there when the police fired tear gas. I was there when elderly protesters braved the winter cold. And now I’m unemployed.”

    These journalists say they received no formal termination letters, only a message from editors citing administrative leave and funding suspensions. They have not been told when or if their jobs will resume.

    “There was a clear line in the message: stop all reporting,” said a Voice of America contributor from New Delhi. “I depend on this income to support my family. I’ve been sending stories every week for eight years.”

    Voice of America was established in 1942 during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda. It has since expanded to reach 360 million people weekly in nearly 50 languages. In South Asia, it provided a platform for independent voices, especially in regions where domestic media faced political pressure or censorship.

    Press coverage where the press is muzzled

    Experts say the funding freeze, if ultimately allowed by the courts, could silence important coverage from conflict zones. In regions like Kashmir, where local journalists already face surveillance and restrictions, international media partnerships like Voice of America provided both visibility and a layer of protection.

    “Working with VOA allowed us to tell local stories without fear of censorship,” says a journalist based in Srinagar. “Now that channel is gone.”

    The impact also extends beyond journalists. Translators, video editors and fixers who worked with Voice of America in the region say their contracts have been halted.

    “I’ve been working as a video editor for their South Asia bureau for six years,” said a technician based in Lahore, Pakistan. “We’ve stopped getting assignments. I haven’t been paid for last month’s work.”

    Some journalists say they are now exploring alternate work, but few opportunities exist for those with years of specialized international reporting experience.

    “I’m being told to apply to local newspapers, but they don’t have the budget or the editorial independence,” said a journalist from Kathmandu. “It feels like I’m starting over after 12 years.”

    Stories the domestic press hesitates to cover

    The Executive Order also affected coverage of religious freedom, caste violence and press crackdowns in India. Journalists who regularly filed in-depth features say important stories are now going untold.

    “I was working on a long story about attacks on Christian communities,” said a reporter based in Tamil Nadu. “It’s not something mainstream outlets want to cover. Voice of America gave me space to explore that. Now it’s shelved.”

    The global press watchdog Reporters Without Borders has described the shutdown as a serious setback for journalism, warning that it could encourage political interference in media operations across the world.

    Stephen Capus, head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which also lost funding, said the move would leave millions without access to independent reporting.

    In South Asia, journalists say this is about more than losing a paycheck. For them, it’s the breakdown of a reporting network that allowed them to cover sensitive stories in challenging environments.

    “We weren’t just sending news reports,” says a journalist who covered the Indian government’s 2019 decision to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy. “We were capturing what was happening when few others could. And now someone in Washington has pulled the plug.”

    With no clarity on whether the shutdown is permanent, most contributors are in limbo. Some are looking for freelance work. Others are applying for short-term grants. But many say the abrupt stop has left them disoriented.

    “I always thought if I stopped reporting, it would be because of risks here,” one journalist said. “I didn’t expect to be cut off by a government halfway across the world.”

    Questions to consider:

    • What is the Voice of America?

    • Why has the U.S. government long funded foreign journalists outside the United States?

    • Do you think governments should pay journalists to cover events and other stories? Why?

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  • The legion of journalists who report unbiased news

    The legion of journalists who report unbiased news

    Are you frustrated because politics is bitterly polarized? Have you almost given up on finding news that is fair, accurate, dispassionate and digestible?

    If so, I have a tip for you: Take a look at some of the major international news agencies. It may change how you consume news while making you better informed.

    Also called wire services, news agencies like the Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) have thousands of multimedia journalists — and clients — spread out around the world. With roots in the 19th century, they have impartiality and a commitment to accuracy in their DNA.

    No news organization can be perfectly impartial. But the better wire services offer an antidote to the slanted and unreliable offerings that often pose as “news” on the internet but can represent little more than one-sided, sensationalized accounts that stoke social and political discord.

    Check out this chart: There’s a reason the AP, Reuters and AFP are considered among the most reliable and balanced Western news sources. It has a lot to do with their history and purpose.

    Fast and factual

    The AP, Reuters and AFP were founded in the 19th century to serve a cross-section of newspapers that could ill afford to have journalists around the world at a time when the appetite for international news was on the rise.

    To succeed, the agencies sought to play it straight and to deliver the news quickly and accurately. Their stock-and-trade was unvarnished, accurate, fast coverage that could win space in any newspaper, regardless of its owners’ or readers’ political leanings.

    “To achieve such wide acceptability, the agencies avoid overt partiality,” Jonathan Fenby wrote in a 1986 book on international news agencies. “They avoid making judgments and steer clear of doubt and ambiguity. Though their founders did not use the word, objectivity is the philosophical basis for their enterprises — or failing that, widely acceptable neutrality.”

    By the 1980s, the four biggest news agencies accounted for the vast majority of foreign news printed in the world’s newspapers.

    A great deal has since changed in the news ecosystem, much of it due to the invention of the internet. But most wire services continue to strive to offer comprehensive, impartial and accurate news reports, complemented nowadays by photographs, video and graphics.

    Keeping a cool head in hot spots

    If you’re home watching the news and there is a video report of an event in a far-away country, chances are it was produced by a news agency. Similarly, reports in newspapers, on the radio or even on the internet often come from news agencies, which typically have many more journalists on the ground than other news organizations, especially in hot spots.

    “The first word of natural disasters in out-of-the-way places invariably comes from agencies,” said News Decoder correspondent Barry Moody, who worked for decades at Reuters and ran the agency’s news coverage during the second Iraq war at the beginning of this century.

    “During the Iraq war, we had an army of staff in Middle Eastern capitals, embedded with American and British troops and as ‘unilaterals’ roaming the front. I can remember watching as we filed snaps revealing the speed of the American advance into Iraq and seeing the tickers on TV stations and the market screens lighting up at every new alert.”

    News agencies have been playing a similar role more recently in the conflict in Gaza. Although the outlets’ international correspondents have been barred from entering Gaza, Palestinian journalists have risked their lives to deliver timely accounts to the wire services from inside the enclave.

    With journalists and clients around the world, the big international news agencies look at events through a global lens. 

    Balanced news in a biased world

    Many of the thousands of correspondents who report for newswires are in war zones or disputed territories. To protect their staff and reputations, the agencies need to be sensitive to conflicting viewpoints, to cite reputable, credible sources and to avoid taking sides. That explains why, in a world full of shrill, partisan bickering, their reports can seem dispassionate, neutral and tolerant.

    Such balance is not always easy.

    Randall Mikkelsen, another News Decoder correspondent, remembers being a White House reporter for Reuters after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Bucking intense pressure from the U.S. administration and public, the news agency refused to call the attackers “terrorists,” instead opting for “militants” or “designated by the State Department as ‘terrorists.’”

    “Our stories were read around the world,” Mikkelsen said. “In some places, people the United States called terrorists were considered by the readers of our work as ‘freedom fighters.’”

    The internet has all but ended two of the biggest advantages that news agencies held during the analog era — speed and the ability to break news to huge numbers of people around the world.

    Increased competition for fast news

    The low cost of entry for competitors into the news ecosystem has undermined the agencies’ traditional, business-to-business model, which was based on the sale of news stories to mainstream media organizations, themselves under financial stress.

    So, the wire services have launched news portals for the public, giving consumers around the world direct access to agency reports. It’s been a challenge for the agencies to make money off of their consumer business, and services like Reuters and Bloomberg continue to pocket the lion’s share of their revenue from well-heeled clients in the financial markets even as they continue to sell content to news organizations.

    If you peruse the agencies’ websites, you’ll find a vast array of multimedia reports from points around the world. Their global footprint remains a competitive advantage.

    Still, as hard as the international agencies try to be balanced and fair, bias can at times creep in. Their journalists are not spread evenly around the world; many more tend to be in Western nations, whose businesses, advertisers and subscribers provide most of the big agencies’ revenues.

    So while a disaster that kills hundreds in a developing country in the Global South may merit coverage, it can be dwarfed by the attention the same agency will pay to an accident or event in a rich nation. As they say, follow the money.

    Still, as News Decoder correspondent Helen Womack put it: “International news agencies are on the ground in all sorts of places where other media cannot be, and they help to give us the bigger picture.”

    In some countries, local news agencies are controlled by the government or focus almost exclusively on that nation’s interests. They do not have the footprint of the big, international agencies.

    Said another News Decoder correspondent, Maggie Fox: “News agency-style coverage is just what’s called for in this age of mistrust and distrust of news — calm, dispassionate, just-the-facts reporting.”

     

    Three questions to consider: 

    1. What is a “newswire”?
    2. Why must newswires report news without bias?
    3. If you were a news reporter why might it be difficult for you to report without bias? 

     

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