Amanda Bennett, VOA Director

From the Director

Voice of America had a record-breaking year in 2016 reaching more people on digital and traditional platforms than ever-even in the most remote or restrictive media environments. In a year marked by disinformation and extremist rhetoric, audiences turned to VOA for fact-based news and information, and for truthful reporting about the United States.

VOA provided unrivaled access to the U.S. election process in 47 languages. In a technological breakthrough, VOA provided live translations of the presidential debates in Russian, Persian, Spanish, Mandarin, and Pashto. VOA increased reporting on entrepreneurship and technology in Silicon Valley, as well as U.S. education and diaspora communities. It was VOA that provided a unique channel linking Somali communities in Minnesota with the Somali President in Mogadishu.

Our journalists created a special team to report on violent extremism—investigating its roots, funding and propaganda. They faced incredible risks, providing exclusive coverage of Boko Haram camps in Nigeria and reporting on ISIS activities in Iraq and Syria.

VOA experienced its largest-ever growth in weekly audience, jumping 50 million to 236.6 million, with the biggest increases on digital platforms. VOA is in the top five for media audiences on Facebook and/or YouTube in multiple countries, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, Central Africa, China, Iran, Myanmar, and Somalia.

Amanda Bennett is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, investigative journalist and editor and was named Director of the Voice of America in March 2016. Through 2013, she was Executive Editor, Bloomberg News, where she created and ran a global team of investigative reporters and editors. She was also co-founder of Bloomberg News’ Women’s project. She was editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from June 2003 to November 2006, and prior to that was editor of the Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky. She also served for three years as managing editor/projects for The Oregonian in Portland. Bennett served as a Wall Street Journal reporter for more than 20 years. A graduate of Harvard College, she held numerous posts at the Journal, including auto industry reporter in Detroit in the late 70s and early 80s, Pentagon and State Department reporter, Beijing correspondent, management editor/reporter, national economics correspondent and, finally, chief of the Atlanta bureau until 1998, when she moved to The Oregonian. She is currently a contributing columnist for The Washington Post.

Bennett shared the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting with her Journal colleagues, and in 2001 led a team from The Oregonian to a Pulitzer for public service. Projects by the Bloomberg Projects and Investigations team won numerous awards, including Loeb, Polk, Barlett & Steele, Headliners, Society of American Business Editors and Writers and Overseas Press Club Awards.

She was a member of the board of the Pulitzer Prizes from 2003 to 2011 and served as co-Chair of the Pulitzer Board in 2010. She also served on the boards of the Loeb Awards, the American Society of News Editors; and of the Fund for Investigative Journalism as well as the board of advisers of the Temple University Press; the board of directors of Axis Philly, a nonprofit local news site; and of the Rosenbach Museum, a Philadelphia museum of rare books.

She is the author of six books including “In Memoriam” (1998), co-authored with Terence B. Foley; “The Man Who Stayed Behind” (1993), co-authored with Sidney Rittenberg; “Death of the Organization Man” (1991) and “The Quiet Room” (1996), co-authored with Lori Schiller. “The Cost of Hope,” her memoir of the battle she and Foley, her late husband, fought against his kidney cancer, was published in June 2012 by Random House.

She is a member of The Pennsylvania Women’s Forum. Together with her husband, Donald Graham, she is a co-founder of TheDream.US, which provides college scholarships to the children of undocumented immigrants.