Radio Free Asia lays off most of its staff after major funding cuts
Radio Free Asia is laying off about 90 percent of its staff and is shutting down many of its language services, citing its inability to continue paying employees after the Trump administration cut off its funding.
“We are in an unconscionable situation,” Bay Fang, RFA’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Because we can no longer rely on [the U.S. Agency for Global Media] to disburse our funds as Congress intended, we will have to begin mass layoffs and let entire language services go dark in the next week.”
This past March, President Trump ordered the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the federal agency which distributes funds to RFA and other U.S. government-funded broadcasters, to wind down their operations to the bare minimum, in an effort “to reduce unnecessary governmental entities.”
Since 1996, RFA has broadcast in languages like Burmese, Cambodian and Mandarin to a weekly audience of around 60 million listeners.
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