‘I am angry most of the time’: Inside a small VOA cohort’s return to work

Liam Scott worked at Voice of America as a press freedom reporter until, like his colleagues, he was placed on administrative leave in March and later notified that he would be terminated at the end of May.

Several weeks after the Trump administration began gutting Voice of America in March, the news agency is back — except, not really.

A small cohort of Voice of America staffers quietly returned to the Washington office in early May, where they have been tasked with covering the news at a tiny fraction of the agency’s previous capacity.

Instead of 49 languages, the congressionally funded but editorially independent news network is barely publishing in four. And instead of some 1,300 staffers, only about 30 are working.