Steven L Herman — Broadcast Journalist

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. 

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 and an adjunct lecturer in the journalism department at the University of Richmond. Currently, he is 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 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 vice chairman of the Stafford County Telecommunications Commission. He will join the board of governors of the National Press Club in 2025.

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, 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.

Among the major news stories Steve covered on scene in Asia: The Kobe earthquake (1995), the Tokyo subway sarin attack (1995), handover of Hong Kong (1997), war in Afghanistan (2007-2010), end of the Sri Lanka civil war (2009), the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011), Typhoon Haiyan (2013), the 2014 Thai coup d'état, the Erawan Shrine bombing (2015) and the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. He has reported from dozens of countries and territories in Asia, Europe, the Middle East/North Africa and throughout the Americas.

Steve is one of the most active Washington journalists on social media with nearly 330,000 followers, including now on Bluesky.

Steve appears frequently on broadcast networks, news channels and podcasts around the world to analyze American politics and geo-political events, including: ABC (Australia), ABS-CBN News (Philippines), Arirang TV, Al Jazeera, Asharq News, BBC, Bradcast (KPFK Los Angeles), Buckmaster Show (KVOI Tucson), CBC Radio, Channels TV (Nigeria), Citi FM (Ghana), CNN, C-SPAN, Euronews, eNCA (South Africa), e.tv News (South Africa), Fox News, John Batchelor Show (WABC New York), KBS Radio (Korea), KNPR (Nevada Public Radio), Money FM 89.3 (Singapore), NBS (Uganda), Newzroom Afrika (South Africa), NewstalkZB (New Zealand), Radio New Zealand, RTHK Radio 3 (Hong Kong), tbs Efm (South Korea), Thai PBS World, Times Radio (UK), TRT World (Turkey), TVC News (Nigeria), TV Romania and numerous TV news channels in India: Doordarshan, India Ahead, India Today, NDTV, News18, NewsX, Republic TV, Times Now and World Is One News. He has also reported for the CBS Evening News. 

Articles, columns and reviews by Steve have been published in numerous newspapers and magazines including the Far Eastern Economic Review, Harvard Summer Review, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Japan Quarterly, Japan Times, Number 1 Shimbun, On the Air, Popular Communications, Public Diplomacy Today, Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute), Radio World, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Shukan Bunshun, Shukan Gendai, South China Morning Post and the Wall Street Journal.

In addition to years of reporting for AP, including as the wire service's state broadcast editor in West Virginia, Steve's career included a stint as a media executive, launching Discovery Channel and Animal Planet in Japan. He was an executive producer of a documentary, The History of America's Secret Casinos and VNR field producer in Sichuan, China on the set of the Warner Bros. film The Amazing Panda Adventure. 

Steve is an East West Center media alumnus, a First Cohort of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and a member of the AEJMC, Authors Guild, the Public Diplomacy Council of America, SAJA, SPJ and the White House Correspondents Association.

A native of Cincinnati, Steve began his media career in Las Vegas before moving to Asia. He was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2023.

A lifelong learner who completed undergraduate or graduate level coursework at UNLV, The New School, University of Bath and the Harvard Extension School, Steve earned a B.A. at Thomas Edison State University, an M.A. in Public Diplomacy from Mountain State University and was awarded a journalist virtual fellowship by the LMU Loyola Law School. ​

Steve has been a licensed amateur (ham) radio operator since his youth (FCC call sign W7VOA). He is a life member of the QCWA and can be found on the shortwave bands chasing ‘DX.’