The layoffs amounted to over a third of the media organization’s staff, and came as the Trump administration put up for sale the federal building in Washington that houses the network.
The Trump administration on Thursday fired nearly 600 employees at Voice of America, a federally funded news network that provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedoms.
The layoffs targeted contractors, most of them journalists but also some administrative employees, and amounted to over a third of Voice of America’s staff. They signaled that the Trump administration planned to continue its efforts to dismantle the broadcaster despite a court ruling last month that ordered the federal government to maintain robust news programming at the network, which President Trump has called “the voice of radical America.”
In another sign of the Trump administration’s hostility toward the broadcaster, the federal building in Washington that houses the media organization was put up for sale on Thursday.
Michael Abramowitz, the director of Voice of America, said in an email to his staff on Thursday that the firings were “inexplicable.”
“I am heartbroken,” he said. Mr. Abramowitz has sued to stop the Trump administration from closing the news organization.
Kari Lake, a senior adviser at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America, said that the Trump administration had acted within its legal authority.
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