Episode 96: The Silencing of the Voice of America with Steve Herman

Disclaimer: Unedited AI transcription

Larry (00:07):

You are listening to specifically for Seniors, a podcast designed for a vibrant and diverse senior community. I'm your host, Dr. Larry Barsh. Join me in a lineup of experts as we discuss a wide variety of topics that will empower, inform, entertain, and inspire as we celebrate the richness and wisdom of this incredible stage of life.

Larry (00:40):

I was six years old when Voice of America first broadcast

Recording (00:49):

America.

Recording (00:53):

This is a voice speaking from America,

Recording (00:56):

A voice from America at war.

Recording (00:59):

Our voices are coming to you from New York, across the Atlantic Ocean to London from where they are relayed to you in Germany

New Speaker (01:08):

Today, America has been at war for 79 days

Recording (01:14):

Daily. At this time, we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news may be good or bad. We shall tell you the truth.

Larry (01:24):

VOA was established in 1941, initially focused on countering Nazi and Japanese propaganda during World War ii, and it later played a significant role during the Cold War broadcasting to communist countries. Very recently, however, the White House moved to close down Voice of America to quote, ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda. To get an up close and personal view of what's happening at Voice of America, we asked Steve Herman to be a guest on the podcast. Steve is the Chief national correspondent for Voice of America from 2017 to 2021. Steve was senior White House correspondent and subsequently VO a's White House Bureau Chief. He's the author of five books, the most recent of which is Behind the White House Curtain, a senior journalist story of Covering the President and Why it matters. It's a 2024 release from Kent State. Kent State University Press. It's an honor, privilege to have you on specifically for seniors. Steve, it is a pleasure to be here. Larry, let's start by talking about Voice of America. For people who are unfamiliar with it, can you describe its history, mission, and function over the years?

Steve Herman (03:08):

Yes. You gave a very good introduction and it appears that you have outlived the voice of America now because, as you mentioned, it went on the air the early days of World War II and broadcast uninterrupted for 83 years until the middle of last month. It originally started out as a radio service on short wave, because that was the state, state-of-the-art technology at the time to reach people overseas. And eventually it went into television, online, all the social media apps, and until the middle of March was up and running in 49 languages.

Larry (03:54):

Why is, and why was Voice of America so Vital?

Steve Herman (04:00):

Voice of America was essentially our most effective instrument of public diplomacy or soft power, certainly one of the longest living and probably one of the most cost effective. I like to say that on an annual basis it's less than the cost of two fighter jets to operate the Voice of America and hard power is sending troops and dropping bombs on people. And soft power is portraying a positive image of your society through arts, entertainment, culture. And in the case of Voice of America news and information, the Voice of America was exclusively and external broadcasting service, which is why a lot of Americans, especially younger Americans, do not know of VOA, but if you ask people who immigrated from other countries, especially from Eastern Europe, Africa or East Asia, they will be intimately familiar with the Voice of America. Also people that lived overseas were in the US military stationed outside the United States or in the Peace Corps in such probably also listen to the Voice of America at some point, but we are not a domestic broadcasting service. And actually for many, many decades, that was essentially prohibited by law. But with the advent of the internet you could then listen to and see and read all of the VOA content in those dozens of languages on the website@vonews.com.

Larry (05:52):

What kind of stories did vo a cover?

Steve Herman (05:56):

We covered everything. We had correspondence that were posted at the White House as I was for five years at the Pentagon on Capitol Hill across the United States. And staff correspondents along with freelance reporters around the world. One of our primary missions tell America's story to the world, but we have a charter that lays it out very clearly. We are not to be the voice of any particular administration. We are to reflect American institutions and discussion the views. So that means on a particular issue, we will not just air stories that are biased or slanted on one side of that particular issue. If the president is coming out with a significant new policy, then we might go interview somebody as well on Capitol Hill who was in the opposition or an NGO, sometimes people in favor, sometimes people against. And what this not only demonstrated was democracy and action, but also how the media a US government funded media was reflecting the United States in a, in, in an unbalanced manner, which was positive, especially for people who were living in repressive societies.

Larry (07:23):

Voice of America has been supported by all the presidents for the last 80 years. As a, as we mentioned, the current administration has opted to close down Voice of America and put you and 1300 of your colleagues unexcused absence. I guess what I'm most interested in are, are the people who worked at Voice of America. We talk a lot about government function, but we don't spend much time learning about the kind of people their diligence and their dedication to duty and work. Can you tell us something about your colleagues?

Steve Herman (08:11):

Yes. 1,350 colleagues a lot of them came from other countries because they're broadcasting in Swahili, Burmese, Chinese Korean, Ukrainian Russian, Urdu 48, 49 languages, and all most of the full-time employees that work for Voice of America are civil servants. There are a few like myself who are in the Foreign Service under VOA, not the State Department, and we have about 550 contractors who were due to be terminated at the end of last month until a judge, a federal judge in New York City, granted a temporary restraining order, putting those firings on hold. We know that the Parent Agency, US Agency for global Media had notified the unions representing the VOA staff that they were poised to do rifs reduction in force, essentially terminate the, the civil servants and the foreign service officers.

Steve Herman (09:24):

We also have a number of journalists who were not US citizens who were here on J one Visas and they face essentially being deported or expelled from the United States on very short order. Some of them are from countries such as Burma and Russia, Belarus I know of one from Hong Kong who would face persecution possible imprisonment or worse if they were to land up in their native countries, in part because of the type of objective reporting that they were doing on the Voice of America.

Larry (10:10):

So it's not as, as has been accused spewing radical propaganda.

Steve Herman (10:18):

I urge anyone who may be skeptical about how the Voice of America has been doing its job, how we have been doing our job, to go to the website, vo news.com, which is sort of frozen and amber, as of March 15th as long as it's still up, and you can read all of the stories in English, you can go back and look at my TV packages that I've done for, I, I, I think the past decade or or longer. It's all on the website and all the content that was in these 48 or so other languages as well. So you can do your own due diligence on whether you think that our content was biased in any particular fashion. I can tell you, Larry, over the years I've heard from people both on the left and the right, they see a headline on a story that I put out on social media that's a VOA story.

Steve Herman (11:20):

And and based on that headline feel that the, the, that the story is biased, and I tell them, please read the story, and if you have an issue with the accuracy or the slant of a particular story, please let my bosses know. Because every story that we would do would go through at least two editors, and then if it had anything political in it, it would go through a third editor, a balanced editor, to ensure that it wasn't slanted one way or the other. So I worked at the Associated Press before I worked at VOA, and I can assure you that the, the standards and journalistic ethics and our approach to journalism is very, very similar to what I experienced at the Associated Press.

Larry (12:16):

You were singled out purportedly for quote, social media activity that has undermined vo a's audiences perception of the objectivity and or credibility of VOA and its news operations. Aside from your posts about disliking pizza with pineapple <laugh> what's that all about?

Steve Herman (12:44):

Yes. this is an old refrain. I was also targeted near the end of the first Trump administration when some political appointees came in. And I was White House Bureau chief at the time, and there was an investigation. And then this was reviewed by a federal judge, office of Special Counsel, an Office of Inspector General who said essentially that I was politically targeted. I did nothing wrong. I was following VO a's charter and everything that I was doing, and I also had First Amendment rights as well as a journalist, even though I was working for the United States Government. So this came up again recently, and just like looking@voanews.com, I'm on all the big social media platforms and you can find everything that I have posted on social media going back at least 15 years, I think, and make your own conclusions about whether my social media output does not reflect the values of the Voice of America.

Larry (14:01):

Yeah. But even more importantly, what's about this pizza and pineapple bit

Steve Herman (14:06):

<Laugh>? Well, I had made a comment because of the the question that you raised, and I said, you know, I don't think I've ever put a an a a personal preference or comment or expressed any sort of bias on social media except for not liking pineapple on pizza. And I will stand by that. And I know I have support on that from many Republicans, Democrats and independents, Larry,

Larry (14:34):

They can leave chicken off as well. Yes. Given closure of VOA and a US agent, what

Steve Herman (14:44):

Is it? US Agency for Global Media, US Ag GM is a power company.

Larry (14:48):

Yeah. Which includes Radio Free Europe and radio free Asia. What does this mean about the rest of the world's understanding of America?

Steve Herman (15:00):

Well, it means they will have a lot less understanding of America, because there's a void to be filled. VOA had several thousand affiliate stations that would run our programming in all of these different languages. And they will now go to other providers of international news and information. Those providers are perhaps going to be those that originate out of Beijing or Moscow. Tehran has a also an, an international tv service as well. And they will be the ones telling those audiences and in these dozens and dozens of countries about what's happening, not only in the world, but the United States as well. And I can assure you that it's not going to be complete. It's not going to be objective. No one at VOA ever said we were perfect, that we couldn't do things better. But we knew that we were consistently objective and portraying accurately what was happening in the United States. And I can tell you as a former foreign correspondent, what was happening in the world as well.

Larry (16:17):

So it sounds like people in other parts of the world are gonna get a more biased viewpoint of the United States just by listening to our regular news broadcasts.

Steve Herman (16:31):

Yes. I would agree with that.

Larry (16:33):

In, in this time of very easy communication due to the internet. Why is Voice of America still relevant?

Steve Herman (16:45):

Yes, it's relevant because to reach people in different countries, in different societies, you need a lot of different tools. As I mentioned, when we started out, short Wave Radio was that tool, VOA was doing very, very little shortwave radio. As of 2025, there was still some broadcast on both Medium Wave, which is AM radio and shortwave into North Korea, because they cannot see us on the internet or watch us on satellite TV there. But in most countries, people were receiving VOA television via satellite, or in some cases cable affiliates and other countries, especially in Africa. We had a string of FM radio stations broadcasting 24 7 with VOA programming in the major cities on the African continent in other countries we might use AM radio to reach them, or through social media apps, our different language services we're using whatever were the most appropriate apps to put out. Not only TV content, audio, but also web stories as well. And of course all of the language services had internet websites, and there was an entity under us, A GM, which was also developing tools so that people in countries such as China, which were behind the firewall for the internet, could circumvent that. So we were doing whatever it would take to ensure that the majority of the people in those particular target countries had access to our content.

Larry (18:36):

And now some of the journalists are suing the administration, accusing officials of unlawfully shuttering a federal funded media

Steve Herman (18:48):

Outlet. Yes, there are a couple of lawsuits where VOA personnel are the plaintiffs, and then there are also lawsuits that have been filed by radio Free Europe and radio Free Asia who are grantees. In other words, they're not part of the federal government, but they're administered by U-S-A-G-M and Congress approves their budget. And, and the argument in these cases in general is there's executive overreach here. These monies were appropriated by Congress. These services were authorized by Congress, and the executive branch of the government unilaterally cannot stop the funding for them and take them off the air and get rid of all of their employees. It's gonna take a while for all this to run through the a legal system. But I can tell you that my colleagues and I are generally optimistic that we will see some favorable court rulings.

Steve Herman (19:56):

In one particular case that I'm involved with there's already been a temporary restraining order issued by a, a federal judge basically freezing everything in place, keeping the, the boulder from rolling farther down the hill. And now what we wanna do in the legal process is, is push that boulder back up the hill. And we have a lot of lawyers working pro bono from a number of major law firms, as well as people at the Yale Law School as well helping us a lot of different labor unions and journalists, organizations that have signed onto this case. It is, it is a, a huge effort.

Larry (20:39):

And on the positive side, you and your colleagues have started the pound sign, say VOA campaign. What's that about?

Steve Herman (20:51):

Yes, we wanna raise awareness, especially among the American public about what has happened to the Voice of America. As I mentioned, Larry Americans are not our target audience, but the American people are among our stakeholders. Your tax dollars were paying for this. And we believe that it was a really, really good way of, of spending tax dollars money because of the impact, reaching hundreds of millions of people seeing surveys. That said, with Voice of America, that the trust in what we were broadcasting on average across all language services was 85% of the audience. Some countries like Ethiopia, I think it was close to 98%. Those are remarkable numbers. I can guarantee you, Larry, if you survey people in the United States about any domestic media, that you're not going to get those, those sort of high numbers these days.

Steve Herman (22:00):

So, and I think that demonstrates how effective this was. And another way I think we demonstrated how effective US International Broadcasting has been, is through the reaction that we've seen from the Kremlin and from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, essentially celebrating the demise of the Voice of America and the near silencing at this point of radio free Europe and radio free Asia, middle East broadcasting networks, which broadcasts in Arabic, and then there's radio and tv, Marti and Spanish to Cuba, which has partially gone back on the air thanks to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. But if, if these services were not effective, why would Authoritarians be celebrating their demise?

Larry (22:53):

Hmm. What, what can we in the public do to help

Steve Herman (23:00):

Write your, write your member of Congress? If you're concerned about this you have the right as a, a voter in this country to make your thoughts known to your members of Congress. We're very fortunate that a lot of other people are writing letters to the editor or publishing op-ed pieces. And and that's why I'm doing interviews like this one, Larry, I much prefer as a journalist to be asking the questions than answering them. And it's a little bit uncomfortable at times to be on the, on the, on this side of the I, well, I'm on this, this side of the microphone answering the questions. But I feel compelled to do it because the American people should know what's happening. And as I've said in other interviews, if co if the American people feel that US funded international broadcasting, the Voice of America, whatever should be a mouthpiece of any particular administration, then Congress can change the law.

Steve Herman (24:13):

But that's up to Congress to do me and my colleagues, we have to follow the law. And that means if the law says that we will present the news and our, our other stories in a, in a, in a fair and unbiased manner we, we have to do that. And the, we also have a firewall between us and other parts of the administration that say, Hey, they cannot interfere in telling you what to report or what not to report, or to slant the story a certain way. And if they try to do it, then we're compelled to be whistleblowers because these are violations of, of federal law. And I don't, I don't want to break federal law. I have my journalistic ethics and standards and all that, but I am not going to do anything that could be perceived as breaking the law while I am a a voice of America correspondence.

Larry (25:11):

Yeah, I was just about to ask you if, if you were ordered to present a certain viewpoint

Steve Herman (25:18):

With the <crosstalk>. I've never had that happen at VOA in the nearly 20 years that I've been on staff. And I was a freelance reporter for years before that. And that's one of the reasons that I joined Voice of America as a staffer. I really believed in the mission, and I really liked working with the editors. They were top-notch journalists, and nobody was trying to, to slant anything. And with the, this current administration that did not happen either because we were all essentially thrown out of the building. And the, and the transmitters switched off, and the satellite transponder turned off as well. You know, with, without any consultation or getting any sort of guidance from the new political appointees of our parent agency they just decided to shut the whole darn thing down, unfortunately.

Larry (26:16):

But that again, goes back to usurping the power of Congress.

Steve Herman (26:23):

Well, that's the argument that we're making in these lawsuits in federal court.

Larry (26:30):

On another subject, you mentioned you were uncomfortable doing interviews. You'd rather be on the other side. Yes. I listened to the 60 Minutes interview. How did you feel about that?

Steve Herman (26:43):

Well, I've been watching 60 Minutes since it went on the air. So I was pretty familiar with the format. And I also know, unless you know, maybe you're an opera singer, you're not getting off easy being interviewed by, by by 60 Minutes. This was not a personality profile that they were doing on doing on me as some great talent of, of culture. And I decided to do it along with my colleague, my successor is the White House Bureau Chief Patsy wida, who had also been a targeted as I was, because we felt, again, it's important for the American people to know what has happened. And I, I, I think the piece turned out okay we got a lot of airtime. I think the main piece was 13 minutes, and the sidebar was six minutes long, 60 minutes over time. I encourage people to, to watch that segment as well. And I think it made a pretty compelling case on behalf of all of my colleagues as well as the legacy of The Voice of America.

Larry (28:03):

So you felt you were given enough time and editing coverage to tell the full story?

Steve Herman (28:11):

Yeah, it was a, it's a pretty long piece. And you know, the interview my interview and Patsy's interview, I think were an hour long each, so we were in the hot seat for, for a long time. And bill Whitaker. Bill Whitaker is an, an excellent journalist, ask great questions. There was other material in there that didn't make it on the air. We had, we didn't get the questions in events. People asked me that. We had no, you know, input into the editing of the piece, and we didn't see it until it went on the air.

Larry (28:49):

I mentioned your book at the beginning behind the White House curtain.

Steve Herman (28:52):

Yeah, I've got a copy of it. Right, right there.

Larry (28:55):

<Laugh> <laugh>. Tell us about the book.

Steve Herman (28:58):

Yeah, so I wrote this book after covering the White House for five years, the four years of the Trump Administration, the first year of the Biden administration. And there was also some turmoil, political attacks on the Voice of America in me as well. And a lot of people approached me especially when I would do public speaking and said, oh, you should write a book. And I resisted it, Larry, for a, for a long time. Writing a book is a <laugh> is a long process. It, it, it takes longer to do that than putting together a podcast, as you know. And it, it's also because it involves a serious amount of time. And working with publishers and the timeline also, I was kind of worried that if I wrote a book and it took a year and a half after I finished the manuscript, would it still be relevant?

Steve Herman (29:54):

So I had a lot of hesitations about it, but the people at Kent State University Press were fantastic to work with. I've, I've done some other books before, but they were, they were just really, really wonderful. And and I was very comfortable with with, with how it turned out, and I think it is now especially relevant because of what's going on right now in the, in the past couple of months. And now people are saying, oh, you should write another book. And I, I haven't made a decision on that yet.

Larry (30:32):

Did you get to an interview, the current president?

Steve Herman (30:36):

Well, I had spoken with both presidents as a member of the White House Press pool that goes into the Oval Office, flies on, on Air Force One. I was the radio pool reporter. It's a rotational job where we do that on behalf of all of the, the other white House media. So I've asked the President's questions hundreds and hundreds of times. Sometimes they answer <laugh>, but most of the time they did answer. I may not like the answers, and I would try to follow up. And, and I say in my book that Donald Trump is probably in, in, in terms of media access number one in that category in American history. I'm, I'm pretty certain he has spent more time speaking to reporters on the record than any other president. Now, Lyndon Johnson would go on for hours on Air Force One bearing his soul to, to the reporters on the plane on those, you know, the trip took longer back in the 1960s to get from the East Coast to the West Coast.

Steve Herman (31:46):

There was a lot of time in the air, but it was off the record. And co and other presidents Mo mainly spoke to journalists off the record. And of course, we want to have as much time on the record with the President as possible. I know yesterday or the day before, we're, we're, we're taping this which was pretty routine for Donald Trump to to answer questions from the White House journalists for an hour. Now, there are a lot of problems in the eyes of, of, of the White House Correspondence Association, because he's changing who's allowed to, to, to be in the Oval Office. He kicked out the ap. There's now been a lawsuit about that, and in a, and a court order that the AP has to be included again. But you know, Joe Biden as well when I, when I covered his administration, I also covered his when he was campaigning for president the first time as well.

Steve Herman (32:49):

Acce accessibility is issue is, is very, very important for us as white House journalists. So I go into a lot of the mechanics in my book about how the sausage is made, so to speak, what a White House correspondent does, what it's like to travel on Air Force One how, how things work in the White House Press briefing room. A lot of this is changing very quickly now because this administration is putting down new rules and breaking with tradition and taking much, much more control of elements of White House coverage that were conducted by the White House Correspondence Association.

Larry (33:33):

What, what can we in the public do, if anything, excuse me. When we, when we disagree with actions like cancellation of Voice of America

Steve Herman (33:48):

Check out the hashtags, save VOA on the different social media platforms, and you can help amplify that if you agree with the mission of save VOA. You know, there are people that might have different opinions about it, but my my point of view is if you want VOA to be something different, if you say, well, it shouldn't be objective, the, the the party in power should be able to control it, well, that's up to Congress to, to change the law on that. But of course, if it becomes the the, the, the voice of a particular party that's in power, then when that party's out of power it'll, it'll become the voice of the party that you don't like. So it's worked, I think, for 83 years. And I hope that it it can be returned to what it was before. But, you know, the longer we're off the air, the harder it is to get that that audience of 360 million back that we've had because their habits have been broken now, and they're not looking at the content or watching it every single day.

Larry (35:02):

Is there a role for podcasts that don't broadcast to 360 million people? In, in this whole process?

Steve Herman (35:14):

I've been doing a number of podcasts, Larry. So yes, my answer to that is absolutely. And I, I, I don't think I've turned down a single media request. In some cases, I've referred them to some of my colleagues, because if it's about Eastern Europe or about the Korean Peninsula, there are other people that are able to, you know, better articulate on those particular issues dealing with VOA or R-F-E-R-F-A. And I'm, I'm not making any distinctions about the, you know, whatever the, the political slant of a particular podcast may be. I'm, I'm very happy to, you know, engage with hosts across the political spectrum. I know that from what I can tell about your podcast, it is, it is, it is not partisan you are, you're reaching a, a certain demographic, obviously, which I think is, is also important to address.

Larry (36:26):

Yeah, I, I think we are, we are a little bit biased on <laugh> on one side and we're trying, we've sort of shifted the direction of the podcast from topics that were more specifically for seniors into the political spectrum, because that's where the interest of the listeners is,

Steve Herman (36:50):

Right? Well, I, I, I acknowledge that I have one bias besides the anti pineapple on a pizza party <laugh>. And, and that is, I'm pro-democracy, and that's what the Voice of America has also been about for 83 years. It was started up to combat fascism in Europe and what was happening in the Pacific with the the Japanese Empire, which had a attacked the United States and brought us into world War ii. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep my bias, Larry, about being pro-democracy regardless of what cost that may entail in the future. And it sounds strange to be saying that these days, because to me, democracy was like baseball apple pie, and I, you know, I don't wanna get into car brands. I, I have a Jeep right now, but I've owned Fords and Chevrolets as well. <Laugh>.

Larry (37:59):

Do you think democracy has a chance of existing in the world today? Well,

Steve Herman (38:06):

It is existing I in the world today. Now, there's lots of surveys you can go look at that are analyzing the, the geopolitical trends. I am sticking right now to talking about, you know, my personal situation, those of my colleagues, the Voice of America, US Agency for Global Media, because I am still employed by the Voice of America. But I, I feel very comfortable that I have First Amendment rights to talk out about these issues that are directly affecting me as a, as a veteran, VOA journalist and, and those of of my colleagues the wider issues about the state of democracy or press freedom. I will probably save for my next book after I retire or depart from The Voice of America at some point.

Larry (39:08):

Any other closing thoughts that we didn't cover?

Steve Herman (39:12):

I've heard it say that what's happening to the Voice of America should be of intense interest to the average American because of the role that this particular institution has played for 83 years, and the fact that it has been so easily dismantled and at this point pretty much destroyed is, is big, is, is, is something very, very significant. And I realize that for Americans, the VOA does not directly affect them. We're, we're not the US Department of Agriculture. We're not Health and Human Services because of our mission, like U-S-A-I-D, which has also been destroyed as well. We were primarily working with people in the rest of the world as part of our public diplomacy US a ID foreign aid. And these missions have not, not only saved lives, perhaps millions of lives over the decades, but they have given the world a positive image of what the United States is all about.

Steve Herman (40:48):

We're there for you, is what we were telling people in the rest of the world. Now, did we always get everything right on the on the diplomacy side? You know, certainly not, but I think a lot of people could see that our hearts and minds were in the right place, and that we as Americans genuinely do care about the plight of the world. And of course, by giving accurate news and information, or providing aid to starving children or getting vaccines in to places when an epidemic breaks out you can also say that there's a selfish aspect of that we're preventing these problems from spreading and perhaps coming back on our own shores. And I, you know, I, that's, again, I'm getting a little bit outside of my realm of, you know, getting, getting into you know, analysis of of policy.

Steve Herman (41:49):

But I can tell you, Larry, I would not have stayed at the Voice of America for 20 years if I didn't wholeheartedly believe in the mission. And as you know, in, in the broadcasting business, journalism business, sometimes it's like being a major league baseball player. You change teams every couple of years. Try to work your way up from the, from the the farm teams up to the major leagues or change teams because you feel it's, it's a better job for you. And so for me, this was the longest that I had ever stayed at one journalistic organization because I thought we were doing such great work. And I really, really believe in the mission.

Larry (42:36):

What concerns me most about democracy is what can be removed at the simple literal stroke of a pen.

Steve Herman (42:46):

Yes. And, and that's why we're in court.

Larry (42:51):

Steve, this has been enlightening, engaging. Thank you so much for coming on specifically for seniors.

Steve Herman (43:00):

Larry, thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.

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