The U.S. government has no business running a newsroom. Voice of America (VOA), launched in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, is a taxpayer-funded anachronism that’s lost its edge. With a $250 million annual budget, it beams news to over 300 million people weekly across 48 languages, claiming neutrality and balance as its guiding stars. But that’s a pipe dream. Its staff are American citizens — voters with political leanings baked into their bones. Expecting them to churn out apolitical reporting is as realistic as expecting a fish to climb a tree. It’s past time to pull the plug.

VOA’s defenders argue it’s a vital weapon against authoritarian lies, reaching oppressed corners like Iran and North Korea where independent media is a faint whisper. That’s a seductive pitch — 326 million listeners in 2024 alone, per its own stats, sounds like a triumph. But dig into its execution, and the cracks gape wide. Consider its “balanced” reporting mandate, enshrined in its 1976 Charter and Journalistic Code.

An October 2024 VOA story, “China Hosts World Media Summit in Xinjiang Amid Human Rights Concerns,” takes a swing at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over its Uyghur policies — mass detentions and forced labor in Xinjiang, branded genocide by the U.S. State Department and backed by satellite imagery and survivor accounts. Then, true to policy, it serves up the CCP’s defense: Xinjiang’s party secretary boasts of “economic development” and “technological modernization,” framing the region as a success story of “deradicalization.” This isn’t balance — it’s a taxpayer-funded megaphone for CCP propaganda, diluting a human rights indictment with a dictator’s press release.

The Voice of America neutrality myth gets more absurd.

VOA’s staff can’t escape their humanity — nor should they. During the Cold War, it was anti-Soviet; today, it often shadows U.S. policy on China or Russia. Yet its mandate forces this awkward “balance,” hobbling its punch. Take Amanda Bennett, VOA Director from 2016 to 2020, appointed by Obama. Her husband, Donald Graham, chairs Graham Holdings, which owns Kaplan Inc. — a firm with deep educational ties in China, a market worth billions.

That’s a glaring conflict for steering VOA’s China coverage. The irony peaks higher: after leaving VOA, Bennett became CEO of its parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, in 2022 (appointed by Biden), a post she holds through 2025 — overseeing VOA’s “neutrality” while her family cashes CCP-linked checks.

Chinese listeners, VOA’s target audience, see the rot: they lament how it’s drifting toward CCP propaganda, hearing truth and spin paired like Xinjiang’s horrors with development boasts. The CCP, with its $7 billion propaganda machine, doesn’t need America’s help polishing its image.

VOA’s mission — to counter dictators and promote free thought — is noble but muddled. If it’s a warrior for truth, why hand the CCP a platform to peddle half-truths? If it’s a billboard for American values, why cloak it in faux impartiality?

Private media like Beijing Spring, founded by Chinese exiles, show how it’s done. Unshackled by government strings, it hammers the CCP’s tyranny with no apologies — exposing censorship, corruption, and human rights abuses without bowing to “balance.” Beijing Spring doesn’t waste ink on dictator-friendly fluff; it’s a lean, focused rebuke to authoritarianism, is funded by grit, not taxes.

Scrap VOA, and what’s lost? Not much. The free market can fill the void — however imperfectly. Beijing Spring and its ilk prove private voices can target oppressive regimes without a government crutch.

That $250 million could fund tax relief, roads, or veterans’ care instead of a broadcaster that’s neither fish nor fowl. Critics will howl that axing VOA cedes the info war to tyrants. But a milquetoast outlet too timid to call a spade a spade isn’t winning that fight. Russia’s RT and China’s CGTN don’t bother with fairness — they push their narratives with ruthless clarity. VOA’s watered-down journalism just clogs the signal, a relic of a bygone era when state media made sense.

This isn’t surrender — it’s strategic clarity. The U.S. should lead by example, not by propping up a faux-neutral newsroom that’s lost its way. Let Americans — voters, not bureaucrats — drive the narrative through private enterprise and unfiltered debate, not a sanitized government feed.

VOA’s a quaint notion undone by human nature and a flawed playbook. Shut it down, and let truth fight its own battles, free of the state’s clumsy grip.

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Shaomin Li is a professor of international business at Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business.