In 1942, the U.S. government stood up Voice of America (VOA) to counter Nazi propaganda with accurate news and information. Truth matters, and VOA built its brand. Talk to many Cold War-era refugees and immigrants from East Bloc countries, and they will readily reminisce about secretly listening to VOA broadcasts on shortwave radios under cover of darkness.

With the end of the Cold War, the VOA lost its focus. Many in Washington naively believed it was the end of history. George H.W. Bush spoke of a "new world order." Bill Clinton embraced globalization. As democracy swept Eastern Europe and many countries in Africa, there was a belief that democracy’s triumph was inevitable. Clinton-era negotiators confessed they conceded nuclear technology to North Korea because they did not believe the totalitarian regime would last a decade.

Today, there should be no illusions. Russian conscripts and the families who send them need to hear truth they might never learn from within Russia’s media bubble. China, too, is a sick society whose government desperately tries to cover up complicity in and mismanagement of COVID-19, Uyghur genocide, and Chinese Communist Party corruption. Turks, too, need VOA as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrested or driven into exile independent journalists.

The United States government spends upwards of $265 million annually on VOA. Increasingly, though, its political appointees divert funding from its core mission: broadcasting to those who have little other access to quality, truth-based news.

First, the organization inflated its head office with unnecessary new administrative positions that drained cash from programming, all the while seeking to cut costs from traditional radio programming. Never mind that Russians fighting in the trenches surrounding Donetsk or Burmese struggling against the military junta are not huddled around flat-screen TVs in the jungle.

Acting Director Yolanda Lopez, however, is tone-deaf.

Two months ago, she sent an email to staff bragging about a trip she took to the United Kingdom (at taxpayer expense) to screen VOA-produced documentaries to a British audience. Say what you will about the United Kingdom, but its robust and free press makes it a curious audience for VOA to prioritize. What is next? The Bahamas? Perhaps Germany or Canada?

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees U.S. government programming, ignores the waste, fraud, and abuse in which VOA’s leadership increasingly engages. So too, has Congress.

Perhaps then it should not surprise that Lopez is at it again.

In a LinkedIn post last week, Lopez promoted a VOA news release bragging about ten awards it won at New York festivals for both film and television. While Lopez might be proud, Congress should ask the leadership why VOA is supporting documentaries that Netflix, Hulu, or any number of other private companies might produce.

Lopez's comments suggest that films documenting the flight of two mothers from Kyiv to Bulgaria represent a core interest because it focuses on women’s stories. That VOA describes how, in Bulgaria, "they overcome challenges and find success, begging the question of whether they will eventually ever return to their homeland, Ukraine." This is a curious editorial choice: Is VOA’s goal to encourage flight from Ukraine or provide Ukrainians remaining inside their besieged country news to counter Russian propaganda?

VOA appears unable to get its priorities straight, and its leaders see their tenure less as a way to get accurate information to those most in need and more as a taxpayer-funded audition for Hollywood or Netflix jobs at the Biden administration’s end.

Perhaps, then, it is time for Congress to step in and reduce VOA’s budget by an amount equal to the sum of its documentary division and the recent administrative bloat in its leadership’s head office.

Michael Rubin ( @mrubin1971 ) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.