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NHK
23-05-2025
- Business
- NHK
Radio Free Asia silenced by Trump's spending cuts
Washington-based news outlet Radio Free Asia is an empty shell these days. The journalists are gone, their laptops and cameras jettisoned on desks stripped of all purpose. For decades, they've delivered uncensored information to millions of people living under oppressive regimes in Asia. But in March, US President Donald Trump cut funding to all broadcasters operated by the Agency for Global Media, leaving RFA's future hanging in the balance. "It's really silent, not like the newsroom used to be," says RFA President Bay Fang. "It was a really sad day when everyone was gathering up their belongings." According to Fang, about 75 percent of the organization's 300 or so staff members in the United States have been furloughed. Broadcasts in nine languages are down from about 63 hours per day to seven. Bay Fang, left, Radio Free Asia president, shows NHK World through its emptied-out headquarters in Washington DC. Congress created RFA following the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in China. The outlet has since earned global acclaim for uncovering a string of alleged human rights abuses, including China's reeducation camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. "The idea is to actually just broadcast, not propaganda, not any kind of messaging to these different populations around Asia, but actually to give access to the truth," says Fang. RFA broadcasts in nine languages. Taxpayers 'off the hook' But Trump takes a different view. His administration says the funding cut will ensure taxpayers are "no longer on the hook for radical propaganda." Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, was equally dismissive about the affected media outlets, which include Voice of America ― the largest international broadcaster in the United States. "Nobody listens to them anymore," he said. Fang, on the other hand, insists millions are still tuned in. "You only have to look at how countries like China, Cambodia or Vietnam, the dictators that run these countries, are celebrating the decision to defund RFA." RFA chief Bay Fang spoke to NHK World in April. The Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, has described US government-funded media as a "lie factory." And former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen maintains Trump's cuts will eliminate the "fake news" coming out of a "propaganda machine." Tibetans lose key voice RFA is one of the few outlets that can reach people in the Tibet Autonomous Region via shortwave transmission. Broadcasts used to run for about five hours per day. But now, it's more like 20 minutes. "Despite China trying to jam signals and confiscate satellites, Tibetans continue to listen secretly," says service director Tenzin Pema. "They go to the rooftops or even mountaintops to listen. It's a ritual that has sustained them for so many years. And it's a ritual that has now unfortunately been silenced." Tenzin Pema, RFA's Tibetan service director "For many, they've always looked to their American broadcasts from independent media organizations as a way to understand that the international community has not forgotten them. It has provided them hope for a future that is free. But now, this is being seen as symbolic of the fact that they are actually forgotten." People across Washington are lamenting the funding cuts. They include Michael Sobolik, a Senior Fellow at leading think tank Hudson Institute, who previously served as a congressional staffer in the Senate. Sobolik says he relied on RFA's reporting when collecting facts about China. And he calls the Trump administration's decision a "self-imposed mistake." "I think RFA became collateral damage in a broader effort to take out the waste of Voice of America," he says. "There were some concerns about politicized opinion, politicized reporting. But the problem with how the administration went about it was taking the good out with the bad." Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Michael Sobolik speaks to NHK World. Regimes fill the void Sobolik warns other nations are rushing to fill the empty air waves with their own narratives. "The message that China is pushing right now is that the US can't be trusted ― that we're capricious, that we act on a whim," he says. Sobolik says RFA was one of the strongest elements in a "containment mechanism" against Beijing, because "every authoritarian regime is afraid of the truth." On April 22, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from dismantling three organizations operated by the Agency for Global Media: Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and Radio Free Asia. Still, RFA is yet to receive any funding and it may be forced to lay off most of its remaining employees. Work visas could be next on the chopping block. And deported journalists could suddenly face persecution from the regimes they've been holding to account.
Bloomberg
15-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Voice of America Building Is Latest Federal Property Up for Sale
President Donald Trump's administration is putting the home of Voice of America up for possible sale — the latest in a series of high-profile buildings placed on a list for 'accelerated disposal' as it moves to reduce the government's real estate footprint. The VOA headquarters, formally known at the Wilbur Cohen Federal Building, sits just south of the National Mall and is two blocks from the US Capitol. Originally built for the Social Security Administration, the historic million-square-foot building also houses offices for its parent agency, the Agency for Global Media, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
