TRANSCRIPT:
VOA is important for the United States because it builds understanding and support for the United States. It augments and reinforces our diplomatic efforts and the efforts of our elected leaders around the globe to build support for our policies.
It’s this crucial part of, you know, what some people call soft power. This ability to convince foreign leaders and people to side with us or align with us. And that’s why, I think, Americans should care. Our ability to advance and protect our national interest, but also our values of democracy, freedom of expression are enhanced by tools like the Voice of America, which which builds support for these sorts of things.
You know, I served in the former Yugoslavia for many years in different jobs. I remember first in the 1990s when all of the governments in the region were more or less at war with one another and using their media to get out their own narratives, that one of the few sources for people living in Yugoslavia to get objective information was Voice of America, be that in Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia, or other places.
But also more recently, when I served as the U.S. ambassador in Kosovo, it was critical for us, for the U.S. perspective to be understood, but [also] for the facts of given situations to be understood, because whenever something happened, particularly between Kosovo and Serbia, both sides had a narrative and got it out. Oftentimes, neither narrative was actually completely factual, and the Voice of America was one of those institutions that got the facts out objectively and credibly.
If we silence VOA, we’re just giving more space to our rivals to fill that information space, and with their false narratives, rather than the narrative of the United States and our people, which is one that is based, I think, on both facts and objective journalism and on our values. It’s hard for me to understand why we voluntarily would give up one of these critical tools in our diplomatic toolbox at this moment in time.
Published
Hovenier served as U.S. ambassador to Kosovo from 2022–2024 during the Biden administration. A career diplomat, he spent more than three decades in the Foreign Service, including assignments across Europe and Latin America.