VOA’s Chief National Correspondent, Steve Herman, fights for free press

Exclusive interview for Radio Free Somewhere with Steve Lubetkin of State Broadcast News

WASHINGTON, DC (SBN) — Voice of America’s chief national correspondent, Steve Herman, is fighting back against efforts by the Trump administration to close the 83-year-old news and cultural broadcasting hub that has fed unbiased objective reporting of news about the United States to authoritarian countries around the world since the early days of World War II.

Herman and hundreds of other VOA employees and contractors have been summarily fired by the Trump administration amid unproven charges of corruption and espionage. In this exclusive interview with SBN news director Steve Lubetkin, Herman expresses frustration at the administration’s continued refusal to support the charges with any kind of evidence of wrongdoing.

Herman’s most recent book, Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President―and Why It Matters, gives readers a rare glimpse into the historic and current relationship between the president and the press.

You can watch a free preview of our interview with Steve Herman here:

About the guest

Steven L Herman is the chief national correspondent for the Voice of America. From 2017 to 2021, Steve was senior White House correspondent and subsequently VOA’s White House bureau chief. From July, he will become the inaugural executive director of the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation at the University of Mississippi.

Steve is the author of five books. His latest, Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President — and Why It Matters, is a 2024 release from Kent State University Press.

Steve spent more than a quarter of a century in Asia, including years of reporting from Tokyo and subsequently as a VOA correspondent and bureau chief in India, South Korea and Thailand. Steve also served in 2016 as VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent, based at the State Department and traveling to numerous countries with Secretary of State John Kerry.

During the first Trump administration, Steve was the designated radio reporter on dozens of Air Force One domestic and international trips, including the 45th president’s final flight to Florida. He continued as VOA’s White House bureau chief during the first eight months of the Biden administration.

Steve has been an adjunct associate professor at Shenandoah University, an adjunct lecturer in the journalism department at the University of Richmond and a Council on Foreign Relations Higher Education Ambassador. In 2024, he also taught a media literacy course for Johns Hopkins University/OLLI.

Steve was a JURIST Journalist in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a Kiplinger Fellow at Ohio University

Steve is on the board of governors of the National Press Club and is a former president and life member of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. He also served as president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club and the Japan-America Club of The American University and is a former vice president of the DC chapter of AAJA. Steve was on the board of governors of the Overseas Press Club of America and the American Foreign Service Association.

Steve is on the board of directors of JURIST and is a member of the Stafford County Telecommunications Commission.

Steve has also presented lectures or been a classroom guest speaker in numerous countries, as well as domestically at: Chautauqua, Claremont McKenna College, Fordham University, Georgetown University, Harvard University Asia Center, Indiana University, Kent State University, National Intelligence University, Ohio State University, George Mason University, Penn State-Lehigh Valley, Seattle Central College, University of Mary Washington and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

Paid subscribers can watch our complete interview with Steve Herman at the link below: