The media, citing the White House, claim that one of the reasons why the Trump administration decided to close the media company was the political position of its superiors in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We have verified the veracity of this claim.
March 15, 2025 appeared on the White House website article “Voice of Radical America,” in which the US presidential administration explained the need decree, signed the day before by Donald Trump. In particular, this document deprived the Voice of America media company of funding, since it “guarantees that taxpayers will no longer pay for radical propaganda.” The article provides examples of such propaganda from this media. The first paragraph reads: “Voice of America management has prohibited its staff from calling Hamas and its members terrorists, “except when quoted.” They talked about this RTVI, The Moscow Times, BFM.ru, "Mediazone", Deutsche Welle, "New news", "Constantinople"and other Russian-language media. Messages about the White House's accusations against the Voice of America also appeared in such Telegram channels as Readovka (908,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), “Caution news"(505,000), "Dmitry Nicotin" (356,000) and "Country politics"(108,000). The topic was widely discussed on social networks - for example, one of publications received 307 reposts on Facebook.
Decree "On continuing reduction of the federal bureaucracy, which Trump issued on March 14, 2025, ordered the dissolution, to the fullest extent possible, in accordance with applicable law, of seven organizations, including the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Area of responsibility of this agency included and the Voice of America (VoA) is an American international public media organization (originally a radio station) founded in 1942. It is funded by the US Congress, but, according to rules adopted back in the 1970s, the state has no right to interfere with its editorial policy. Voice of America targets audiences outside the US and produces content in almost 50 languages, including Russian. At the time the decree on combating bureaucracy was issued, VoA was working 1300 people, they were placed on administrative leave. Some media company employees will soon reportedthat they received notice of dismissal.
While most media outlets in their publications about the Voice of America’s policy towards Hamas provided an explanation on the White House website, US presidential administration officials themselves refer to article American conservative publication National Review. There, the material with the headline “Voice of America employees were prohibited from calling Hamas terrorists” appeared back in October 2023, about two weeks after the attack on Israel. Facebook user Kate Litvak relies on the same source in a Russian-language post that has become viral. She writes (the author's spelling and punctuation are preserved):
“It turns out that on October 10, 2023, a senior Golos employee sent out an email reminding the workhorses of the long-established prohibition on calling both Hamas itself and Hamas members “terrorists.” The only exception is a direct quote from a source using the word. <…> Therefore, Golos workers began to call the terrorists who burned Jewish babies with various euphemisms like “fighter.”
But, of course, the independent journalists of Golos did not tolerate lawlessness.
They immediately reported this to their listeners.
And they wrote an open letter of protest.
And they threatened to resign en masse if the bosses did not abolish censorship.
And left-wing bloggers immediately demanded the heads of all Biden administration employees who violated press freedom...
Oh, what am I talking about?
Nobody said a word. Everyone was happy with everything.
Until someone quietly leaked the information to the right-wing press.”
However, the screenshot in the post shows only part of the article, which talks about an instruction sent to VoA staff to avoid calling Hamas and its members terrorists. The National Review note further clarifies that the management's directive caused controversy among the journalists and editors at Voice of America who received it. The press release on the White House website, which was subsequently referenced by other media outlets, also does not mention this detail - it only refers to the order of the management of the media organization.
“Verified” obtained part of the internal correspondence of Voice of America employees discussing the directive. There we found not just “disagreement”, but a pronounced protest from a number of journalists against the proposed changes to The Best Practice Guide. Moreover, the discussions began not after “someone slowly leaked information to the right-wing press,” but immediately after the editors received a directive from their superiors on October 10, 2023. Voice of America employees, explaining their position, drew the attention of management to the fact that Hamas for the most part attacks not military or government targets, but civilians, and this is a pure example of terrorism. Journalists also recalled that the United States officially recognized Hamas is a terrorist organization, and its members killed more than 30 American citizens during an attack on Israel (over later data - 46).
After the publication of the National Review, public discussion of the initiative began. November 1, 2023 Ted Lipien, former and. O. Deputy Director of Voice of America, in a column for The Hill wrote: "Voice of America's refusal to call the Hamas attackers terrorists helps the violence continue." A few days later VoA published material "Why news outlets avoid using the word 'terrorist' in the Israel-Hamas conflict." The author explained the position of his and some other major publications as follows: “The word “terrorist” is too politically and emotionally charged.” At the same time, the article clarified: “Voice of America describes what happened on October 7 as a terrorist attack. The US government has designated Hamas a terrorist organization." Nevertheless, the scandal developed: for example, a group of Republican senators sent a letter to USAGM criticizing VOA's editorial stance on Hamas. Among those who signed this appeal was the current US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Ultimately, as a result of both external and internal pressure, VOA management informed its staff on December 5 that the changes made to the Best Practices Guide on October 10, 2023 were being reversed and the document was being reverted to the 2022 version. “The Guide defines terrorism as the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. Terrorists use violence against civilians to achieve their political or ideological goals. Therefore, hostage-taking and the deliberate killing of civilians, as happened during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, are acts of terrorism, and the people who committed these acts are, by definition, terrorists,” reads the email, a screenshot of which former VoA employees provided to Verified.
In the same message, VOA management notes: “The decision as to which terms are best suited in a particular case remains with the journalist and editor.” At the same time, the letter emphasizes: “If the US government has declared an organization terrorist, as happened with Hamas in 1997, this should be mentioned in your publication.”
After searching the websites of the English and Russian services of the Voice of America (voanews.com and golosameriki.com, respectively), Verified was convinced that, although in the last year and a half, journalists often used the words militants (“militants” - English) and militant group (“armed group” - English) in relation to Hamas members, they were also called terrorists. And not only in quotes, but also in author’s texts - as in English, and on Russian language. Moreover, this word refers to members of Hamas used and the authors of some notes published between October 10 and December 5, 2023.
Thus, although the leadership of the Voice of America indeed tried to introduce a ban on the use of the word “terrorists” in relation to Hamas militants in publications, this initiative aroused serious resistance from the editorial staff, and after the leak of information, from the outside. Two months later, this ban was lifted. Even while it was formally operating, some Voice of America journalists called Hamas terrorists in their publications.
Cover photo: Voice of America PR Facebook account
Read on topic:
- BBC. "Even the KGB failed to do this.” What's happening with Radio Liberty and Voice of America»
- Is it true that this CNN report about the attacks in Israel was staged?
- Stars for Ukraine, condoms for Hamas, grants for the media. Analysis of five statements about USAID
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
