Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia: These media outlets are a central, uncensored voice for citizens in many autocratic states. The US president has now cut off their funding by executive order.
Donald Trump has offered America’s enemies a “massive gift” – this is how Stephen Capus, the head of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFI/RL) station, sees the latest decision from the White House. “Iranian ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the extinction of Radio Free Europe after 75 years. Handing over a victory to our adversaries would make them stronger and America weaker.”
The reason for the grim statement was an executive order from the White House dated March 14. Under the title “Continuing the Reduction of Federal Bureaucracy,” eight agencies are instructed to reduce their activities and staff to a minimum. Among them is the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), responsible for government-funded foreign broadcasters. It runs, among others, the Voice of America (VOA) and officially funds independent stations such as RFI/RL and Radio Free Asia. All are now threatened with closure.
REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS: SERIOUS BLOW TO PRESS FREEDOM
The shutdown of more than 60 programs in different languages would affect millions of people, especially in countries where autocratic governments prevent local press from reporting freely. “This is really a serious blow to press freedom,” Maren Pfalzgraf, head of North and South America for the German section of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told DW in an interview. “The decision affects millions of people around the world who are given independent information by American foreign broadcasters.”
THE ZIMBABWE EXAMPLE: A SILENT CRITICAL VOICE
What this means in concrete terms can be understood using the example of Zimbabwe. RSF ranks this southern African country in 116th position in its press freedom ranking and attributes its poor ranking to, among other things, arbitrary telecommunications surveillance, smear campaigns against the opposition on state television and regular arrests of independent journalists. In this difficult information situation, Voice of America has so far broadcast in the three most important languages: English, Shona and Ndebele.
A Zimbabwean journalist, who previously worked mainly for Voice of America, told DW: “The government-controlled media has so far ignored issues such as human rights, corruption and so on. On social media, government representatives and supporters were cheering over the weekend. This shows how important Voice of America has been so far.”
DONALD TRUMP, ELON MUSK AND KARI LAKE HAVE THEIR PERSPECTIVE FOR VOA
In addition to the executive order, the White House issued a statement with a title that satirized the name of the Voice of America: “The Voice of Radical America.” It went on to say that the order ensures that “taxpayers no longer have to pay for radical propaganda.” A collection of links was said to include the alleged evidence for the criticism. The wording is reminiscent of a post by Trump’s adviser on cutting red tape and efficiency, Elon Musk: In February, he called the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe “left-wing radicals talking to themselves while burning a billion of American taxpayer dollars.”
Maren Pfalzgraf of Reporters Without Borders tells of Kari Lake, the de-facto head of USAGM under Trump. “She tweeted that she wanted to spread America’s achievements. That suggests she wants to exert editorial influence and spread her own perspectives on the world, namely those of the Trump administration,” Pfalzgraf says.
The Trump administration laid off more than 1300 Voice of America employees over the weekend, effective immediately. An Asian journalist who previously worked at the Washington headquarters told DW that about 550 journalists had been laid off by the end of the month. “Many of these 550 journalists are not American citizens, but are in the US on training visas and must leave the country,” she wrote for DW. She said she was angry, saddened and deeply concerned about the situation: “Neutral, objective, accurate and fact-based news is becoming increasingly difficult to provide in a world flooded with propaganda and disinformation. I am proud to have had the opportunity to work with journalists who prioritize the truth.”
VOA: THE MOST TRUSTED SOURCE OF UNCENSORED INFORMATION IN CHINA
Voice of America first broadcast in 1942 – in German, to provide an alternative to the radio programming that had been standardized by the Nazi regime. The number of languages rapidly increased. With a similar mission, RFE/RL was founded during the Cold War, and RFA was added in 1996.
Chang Ping from DW’s Chinese program was present at the pro-democracy protests in China in 1989. “I remember well that everyone gathered in a corner of the campus to listen to the Voice of America through megaphones set up by students. At that time, it was the most reliable and uncensored source of information, providing us with international attention for the Chinese democracy movement and encouraging student protests,” Chang writes. The protests were eventually brutally suppressed, and any commemoration of the hundreds of victims is suppressed by the state.
CAN THE BE SAVE “FREE EUROPE”?
Voice of America is part of the international public service union DG8, of which Deutsche Welle is a member. DW director Peter Limbourg criticized the Trump administration in a press conference that was quickly called online, saying that with this step the Trump administration had weakened freedom and strengthened autocracy. “The experience so far of our colleagues in Europe is: As soon as a vacuum is created, the Chinese and the Russians will enter there, and that is unfortunate. That is why I believe that Europe really needs to do something urgently now.” At least in the case of Prague-based Radio Free Europe, this may even happen: Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky has said that he will engage within the European Union to support the broadcaster’s budget in the future.
