The end of VOA

It seems Voice of America is finally close to being completely dismantled. Two days ago, a federal court in Washington, D.C., declared it would not intervene with presidential decisions. This means the court case that the Voice of America filed is no longer relevant. It is sad to see that VOA is going entirely, but it is probably good if the network is reshuffled and rebuilt, say, if it happens to return in four or so years from now. 

The Afghanistan section was a total propaganda, the network did not have a good reputation in the past either, but in the aftermath of the US troop withdrawal and subsequent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, VOA both Dari and Pashto sections shifted their narratives and ways of covering the news to cater the Taliban's ideology. In other words, VOA was sliding towards becoming the mouthpiece of the extreme ideology of the Taliban from afar with the US taxpayers' money. During my fieldwork, I talked to two employees, both females, and both complained about the way they were forced to censor themselves. "It is stifling," one of them told me when complaining about the ways in which she was forced to write the news bulletin.

But it may be good for humanity. Whatever the outcome, the future will be different. Whatever and whoever, in whatever form and organization, VOA re-emerges, it will not be the same as it was in the hands of ethnonationalists.