TRANSCRIPT:
With the halt of Voice of America broadcasts and the reductions to the other U.S. international broadcasters, America is more disconnected from the world. And just as important, the world is more disconnected from America. And this is happening at a time of unprecedented ability to connect around the world thanks to modern technologies.
At this very moment, where we as America could be connecting with the world as never before, we have shut down our own voice. And we are doing this at a moment when our global adversaries — the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians and others — are taking advantage of new technologies and new communication techniques to conduct global influence operations at a level never seen before. And at this moment, we are silent. We are not telling our story to the world.
Our story is being told by others who are distorting that story, who are pressing false narratives about themselves with no answer or response from the United States in the languages in which people are consuming news and information.
Everywhere I traveled in the world while working for 20 years in U.S. international broadcasting, I heard respect and admiration for the work of the Voice of America. And that is a reputation that the Voice of America won over time, and which will be extremely difficult to recapture at such time that VOA is back on the air.
Published
Trimble served as deputy director of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the predecessor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, where he held a number of senior roles from 2007–2018. Trimble previously worked at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (1997–2007) and spent 15 years at U.S. News & World Report.