蜜芽传媒

In March 2025, radio frequencies worldwide stopped carrying Voice of America broadcasts for the first time in 83 years.

President Donald Trump鈥檚 administration had imposed funding cuts on the US Agency for Global Media with the White House accusing the broadcaster of being "anti-Trump", "radical" and "leftist鈥�. While the cuts are being disputed in courts, Josephine McDermott traces the beginnings of the overseas broadcaster which was designed to counter Nazi propaganda.

In the first Voice of America broadcast in February 1942 it promised, 鈥淭he news may be good or bad; we shall tell you the truth鈥�. We hear the testimony of Eugene Kern who walked in one day in 1942 to casually ask about a job, and was put to work straight away producing a Finnish programme 鈥� unable to speak a word of the language. He says, 鈥淚t was a wild place. Every week a new language service began鈥�.

By the end of World War Two, Voice of America was broadcasting more than 3,000 programmes in 40 languages every week. This Witness History is produced using the archives of the US Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and the US National Archives and Records Administration.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron 鈥� Argentina鈥檚 Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous 鈥榯ear down this wall鈥� speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler鈥檚 List; and Jacques Derrida, France鈥檚 鈥榬ock star鈥� philosopher.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world鈥檚 oldest languages.

(Photo: Gene Kern broadcasting in about 1960. Credit: Jonathan Kern)

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