For the majority in the Lao community, VOA-Lao (Voice of America) has always been part of the household daily news consumption. For the past 50 years, it was the go-to radio broadcast for global and local coverage, which was made accessible to anyone who had access to radio or the internet. Since 1942, Voice of America (VOA) had its roots in World War II and did its first broadcast in Germany. Including the Lao language, VOA is the official external broadcast institution of the US federal government, translating content in more than a dozen languages. President Gerald Ford signed a 1976 law that required VOA “to serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news”. Today, while radio broadcasting is seeing heavy cuts in operations across the nation due to downsized budgets, VOA-Lao and others are continually at risk of being discontinued by the Broadcasting Board of Governors leadership. LLOTP sat down with our featured Lao diaspora of the week, Dara Baccam. Dara is the award-winning VOA-Lao chief editor and correspondent, to discuss her journey, …