The head of a US-funded Arabic TV and online news outlet that claims a strong audience of 30 million people in the Middle East and North Africa fired most staff on Saturday, accusing the Trump administration and billionaire adviser Elon Musk of abolishing funds “adversarial and illegally.”
In a notice regarding the layoffs of staff at Al Hurra News, Jeffrey Gedmin said the US administration has given up hope that the freeze can be lifted at any time for money approved by Congress.
Gedmin accused President Trump’s appointee of the US government agency that oversees Al Hurra, Kari Lake of overseeing Voice of America and other US-funded news programs abroad, and avoiding efforts to talk to her about the funding cutoff.
“We conclude that we are deliberately hungry for the money we need to pay you. Our dedicated and hardworking staff need to pay us,” Gedmin said in a retirement letter obtained by the Associated Press and excerpted on the website of the Middle East Broadcasting Network, the parent company of Al Hurra.
The White House did not immediately respond to Saturday’s request for comment.
Mohamed Al Sabag, an Egyptian journalist who works for the Al Hara News website in Dubai, told the Associated Press that all staff on the website and television channels have received emails ceased to terminate their contracts.
Al Hara is the latest news outlet for cutting back staff and services amid the latest US government-funded news outlets – American Audio, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and more, which say the Trump administration and Musk agents are the Musk agents known as the Slavery Bureau are refraining from paying their legislative legislative.
Appointed to oversee the US global media agency, Lake describes her agency, which was consumed by “huge corruption” that requires the destruction and reconstruction of the agency.
The US-backed news organization was founded during the Cold War. Their designated goal was to provide objective news on other subjects in the United States and abroad. Often it was offered to people under authoritarian governments without access to free news media.
The George W. Bush administration founded Al Hara in 2003. In the same year, a US-led invasion of Iraq overthrew longtime dictator Saddam Hussein. Al-Hara’s journalists covered the US occupation and subsequent sectarian and extremist violence, with some dying from work during the 2011 Arab Spring and other political upheavals.
For many years, Al Hara faced accusations of bias from both conservatives and liberals of the United States, one of the few outlets in the area, providing space for freedom of press and speech.
In a note to staff, Gedmin said his organization will retain dozens of workers and will “being” online as the legal battle over cuts will take place in US courts.
“That makes no sense,” he wrote, “to silence the voice of America in the Middle East.”
Written by Magdy and Knickmeyer for the Associated Press. Magdy reported from Cairo, a Knickmeyer in Washington.
