Dozens of employees of the federally-funded Voice of America are expected to return to work this week after a federal judge ordered those employees back because the news agency was likely wrongfully shutdown during cuts and executive orders last year.
But it may not be as simple as just showing up to the office.
“They’ve taken ID badges so they can’t enter the building as an employee… if you go by the federal process, you have to be signed in and accompanied. So I’m not sure what’s going to happen with regard to the ID badges and all that,” said Larry London, a former anchor at the Voice of America, who took a buyout offer during last year’s cuts.
According to court documents, a judges has ordered 70 employees to return each week until all staff is back at the Cohen Building, the headquarters in D.C., and other VOA facilities.
Earlier this month U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered that Kari Lake, who was the administration’s choice to preside over the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including VOA, lacked authority to reduce VOA to a skeletonized operation.
London told WTOP some staff has remained to broadcast and write for foreign languages like Chinese, Korean and Farsi but he’s not sure how long it will take to return to normal operations.
He said millions of listeners across the world have likely lost trust in the organization after being labeled as propaganda by President Donald Trump administration and eliminating English language broadcasts.
Meanwhile a separate lawsuit filed by some VOA journalists Monday claims the White House has turned the outlet into a tool to spread propaganda.
“It’s going to be a long, long road to get back to where we were,” London said. “So, I don’t know what the timeline or timeframe is for that. I don’t even know if they’re going to be able to achieve any timeframe.”
And the goal of eliminating waste from the government has backfired. According to court documents, every VOA employee has received their salary for the past year.
London added, “All of this was being done under the umbrella of saving taxpayers’ money, of cutting waste, of reducing fraud. Meanwhile, everybody at VOA has been getting paid their regular salary to stay home. We’ve all had over a year of paid vacation at the taxpayers’ expense.”
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