Journalists fight Trump 'attacks' on media as Beijing ramps up state-run radio

Australia Broadcast Center

27-05-2025

When Patsy Widakuswara first saw news that a pro-Trump network would provide content to Voice of America (VOA), she was hunkered down in a bomb shelter in Kyiv.
The threat of a Russian attack came during the VOA White House Bureau chief's trip to Ukraine in May, when she attended a security forum and spoke on a panel about freedom of the media.
VOA, set up and funded by the US government in 1942 to counter propaganda, was largely silenced in March when the Trump administration slashed its funding.
The government agency that housed VOA, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), was "a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer", US President Donald Trump's USAGM senior adviser Kari Lake said at the time.
Critics described the move as a "massive gift to America's enemies", and the decision largely gutted VOA, an international broadcaster that previously reached about 360 million people weekly, with news translated in 49 languages then transmitted abroad.
Earlier this month, VOA faced a second "attack" — it would be provided with newsfeed services from the One America News Network (OAN).
Lake said OAN, known for being the "voice of Trump", offered the content for free, which was an "enormous benefit" for taxpayers.
In contrast, VOA has an editorial charter mandating it to be factual, balanced and comprehensive.
For Widakuswara, reading news about the OAN deal while sheltering from the risk of Russian bombs was "surreal".
She said she felt like she was experiencing "the threat of enemy fire both literally and figuratively".
"Here I am, my outlet — that was formed to fight Nazi propaganda and became a powerful tool in the Cold War — was under attack," she said.
"Not from our adversaries, but from our own [US] government."
Media analysts have warned the decision to align OAN and VOA could distort VOA broadcasts and benefit its enemies in autocratic countries.
A recent report from a VOA journalist on administrative leave said skeleton staff left at VOA were yet to use OAN content, and stories published since the deal remained independent, fact based and balanced.
It is one of multiple efforts by journalists to resist and fight back against Mr Trump's efforts to cut and control media based in the US.
"A free press is the foundation of democracy. Without a free press, people cannot make informed decisions about their governments," Widakuswara said.
"Without a free press, who will be there to hold power to account?"
The cuts to VOA in March were part of the administration's decision to slash the USAGM budget to the minimum required by law.
USAGM subsequently terminated funding to other media agencies it housed, including Radio Free Asia (RFA).
The cuts prompted multiple court cases, including one lodged by RFA, a non-profit media agency based mostly in Washington which provides uncensored news to an audience of nearly 60 million people living under repressive regimes across China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
RFA recently received a court ruling in its favour that meant it could delay laying off more than 250 staff in May.
While the agency has received its April funding, it has not received its May disbursement.
Chief executive Bay Fang urged the government to pay RFA funds "on a timely and consistent basis" so RFA could "come back in full force".
"As this process drags on, it is clear that China is wasting no time to fill a void left by America's retreat from the information space in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond," she added.
As RFA reduced shortwave broadcasts, China "stepped theirs up", RFA analysis said.
RFA broadcasts dropped from 60 to six frequencies from October 2024 to March 2025.
During the same period, Chinese-state-run China Radio International added 82 broadcasts, according to analysis by a third-party media-monitoring company, Encompass Digital Media.
"They largely target audiences that RFA had to step away from: 26 in Tibetan, 16 in Uyghur, 12 in Chinese, and two in Korean.
"Two of those broadcasts — one in Uyghur, one in Tibetan — use the same frequency that RFA once did," the analysis said.
When funding to RFA was cut, authoritarian regimes including Beijing-backed media celebrated the decision, while activists and analysts warned the closures would create information "black holes" that could be filled by Russian or Chinese services.
Vietnamese Australian human rights advocate Trung Doan said RFA was highly regarded in Vietnam, where media was state run and controlled.
Mr Doan said authorities were "afraid" of the Vietnamese people being informed by free, independent media outside of government control.
RFA and other journalists had been jailed there, he added.
"Independent media like Radio Free Asia, they do their own thing, and they report on things that are not necessarily good news for the ruling authority," he said.
Gulchehra Hoja, a furloughed RFA employee, knows well the battle between free media and state-controlled messaging.
A Uyghur journalist living in exile in the United States, Hoja has worked for RFA's Uyghur service for 24 years.
Her reporting has cast light on human-rights abuses perpetrated by Chinese authorities and has won numerous awards.
Hoja said the RFA Uyghur department had become her "home" and she was proud of the work she had done, but she had "paid a great price".
"Because of my work, my family has been living under the threat of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] for more than 20 years. After my brother was abducted in September 2017, by the end of January 2018, 24 members of my entire family were detained in the internment camps," she said.
Some of them remained in camps and prisons today, she said.
Hoja said she worried about the safety of her family but would not "stop being the voice of the Uyghurs".
China rejects all accusations of abuse of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.
While RFA staff remain in limbo, nearly 1,300 VOA staff were placed on paid leave in March, including Widakuswara.
Another 600 VOA contractors will be terminated at the end of May.
About 50 of those hold visas tied to their job. Without their job, they could be forced to return to their home countries, where they could face "retaliation" for their reporting, Widakuswara said.
A federal appeals court decision in favour of the Trump administration's gutting of VOA came down last week, but journalists involved in the case said in a statement on X they remained "committed to fighting for their rights".
Only a small group of staff remain at VOA and now One America News Network (OAN) content is their only news wire option.
Media outlets around the world have contracts with wires services such as Reuters and Associated Press, which gather and feed original, fact-based content that can be republished.
"I can't force these outlets to use the news, but I can offer it to them, and that's exactly what we've done," said Ms Lake, the Trump adviser.
OAN did not respond to the ABC's requests for comment and on its website said it was an "independent media company focused on providing high quality national television programming".
Journalism professor Colleen Murrell, from Dublin City University in Ireland, said the decision to use OAN as VOA's newsfeed service was "completely political".
"One American News will simply toe the US government line. You can expect it to be little better than a government PR feed," Professor Murrell said.
"This decision is going to completely skew the news that goes out on the service."
Professor Murrell warned a change to VOA content would "benefit the service's enemies in autocratic countries with poor media freedom".
VOA was "the most sought-after" radio broadcaster in Asia in 2024 by "a considerable margin", according to Lowy Institute analysis.
Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar are among the countries where the VOA was the most popular.
CNN's chief media analyst Brian Stelter, who was unavailable for interview for this story, described the OAN network as a "MAGA propaganda outlet".
Mr Stelter wrote that OAN was an "amateurish far-right TV outlet best known for promoting Trump's 2020 election lies" and "having access to OAN content is a big step toward turning the Voice of America into the Voice of Trump".
USAGM and VOA did not respond to requests for comment.