An RFA press release states that “Radio Free Asia was informed today by the U.S. Agency for Global Media that its federal grant agreement, which makes possible RFA’s operations in Asia and globally, has been terminated. RFA’s President and CEO Bay Fang issued the following statement” (Radio Free Asia, March 15, 2025):
The termination of RFA’s grant is a reward to dictators and despots, including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked in the information space. RFA has been foundational in helping U.S. policymakers understand the reality of what’s happening in China and other closed countries, bringing transparency and accountability where there is none. RFA’s breakthrough reporting in Xinjiang led the first Trump Administration to make its declaration of genocide against the Chinese government.
Today’s notice not only disenfranchises the nearly 60 million people who turn to RFA’s reporting on a weekly basis to learn the truth, but it also benefits America’s adversaries at our own expense. We plan to challenge this short-sighted order and pursue whatever means necessary to continue our work and protect our courageous journalists.
RFA has a case, and I do see original reporting on its website, as well as many stories that have appeared elsewhere. But it is hardly self-evident that without Radio Free Asia—and Voice of America and other allied organizations, which have also gotten the axe—CCP propaganda and influence “will go unchecked in” what Bay Fang calls “the information space.”
Also, dead in current form does not mean dead forever in any form. Perhaps these organizations will be reconstituted.
Per NPR:
Journalists showed up at the Voice of America today to broadcast their programs only to be told they had been locked out: Federal officials had embarked on indefinite mass suspensions.
All full-time staffers at the Voice of America and the Office for Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and Television MartĂ, were affected — more than 1,000 employees. The move followed a late Friday night edict from President Trump that its parent agency, called the U.S. Agency for Global Media, must eliminate all activities that are not required by law.
In addition, under the leadership of Trump appointees, the agency has severed all contracts for the privately incorporated international broadcasters it funds, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks….
USAGM and the White House did not reply to requests for comment. A deputy White House spokesperson tweeted “Goodbye” in 20 languages over a link to a story from 2023 over a controversy at the Voice of America about how to characterize Hamas.
A statement from the White House about the grant termination, also dated March 15, is posted at its website:
President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on Friday will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.
Dan Robinson, a 34-year veteran of Voice of America and its former White House correspondent, wrote last year: “I have monitored the agency’s bureaucracy along with many of its reporters and concluded that it has essentially become a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media. It has sought to avoid accountability for violations of journalistic standards and mismanagement.”
The White House statement gives several examples of the claimed bias.
One of the cited incidents, having to do with cancelling, midstream, the broadcast of an interview with a Chinese dissident in response to pressure from the Chinese government, was reported in May 2019 by Bill Gertz at the The Washington Free Beacon.
Three VOA employees fired after the incident said that they were treated unfairly by Voice of America. “I feel that the agency scapegoated me to cover their blunder,” one of them said.
Also see:
Whitehouse.gov: Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy
