An American Voice

Voice of America Senior Correspondent Steve Herman’s piece in this month’s Foreign Service Journal leaves little need for summation and every need, for every American, to read in full.

It’s a brief, personal, and damning exposé of the failure of vision in those who would destroy our government for no clear purpose other than to impose their private animus on functional public services.

Herman writes, “Destroying VOA (along with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia) is a national security issue. These entities, funded by the American people, have been among the most effective instruments of American soft power—a bridge to those who may never set foot on our soil, but understand our values because they heard them in one of the dozens of languages in which we broadcast.”

He draws on his career as a member of the U.S. Foreign Service to make the case. He covered the earthquake in Fukushima amid radioactive fallout to mitigate the threat to public safety of panic and misinformation by delivering timely, accurate reporting. He covered Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, reaching the worst-affected communities by helicopter to give voice to those who’d lost everything. He and his colleagues filed stories from war zones and pressed autocratic leaders for answers with a singular purpose: duty not to power, but to VOA’s global audience, especially in places lacking a free press.

But don’t take my word for it. Read this short piece.

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