Filling the gap left by RFE/RL

A €5.5 million fund has been released by the European Union to help support the US-administered international public broadcaster, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

In March, the Trump Administration signed an executive order dismantling the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and the international public broadcasters under its umbrella, including RFE/RL, Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA) and others who as a result, had their funding frozen.

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Legal challenges were brought forward, and in the case of RFE/RL, allowed for the disbursement of some funds – albeit weeks overdue. But regardless, it has remained a battle of survival for these organisations. Mass layoffs – up to 90 percent at RFA – occurred, and many services were cut. The most recent story on VOA’s website was posted on 15 March. And while the appeals court considers the case, VOA’s senior advisor, Kari Lake, cut hundreds of contractors. The court made it clear it won’t intervene or grant a temporary injunction.

But in the EU, RFE/RL found an ally. The call for emergency funding came from the four corners of the Union. In March, the Czech Minister for European Affairs Martin Dvorak issued a statement calling the EU members states to join forces to provide sustainable financial support for RFE/RL. Dvorak said that the role of RFE/RL “remains vital for providing independent information in authoritarian countries and that Europe must act swiftly to ensure its survival.” The statement was signed by 10 EU member states, including Sweden, who also donated €2 million to help the broadcaster stay afloat.

The sudden urge to keep RFE/RL on air triggered a debate on the Union’s responsibility to support USAGM media organisations. Several EU lawmakers stressed that Europe should be a haven for independent media and suggested that institutions provide financial help to RFE/RL. But others, like German far-right AfD MEP, Mary Khan, opposed the idea of the EU helping to fund RFE/RL, while another member of parliament said they had no business interfering in US affairs.

At the announcement of RFE/RL and other USAGM organisations’ frozen funds, one of the main concerns centred on the information void left in their absence.

Jonathan Munro, BBC News and Current Affairs’ Global Director, recently told PMA about the why independent international public service media should try and fill this information gap, firstly, to make sure that “free media is available to those audiences,” and secondly, recognising that  “unless other free media steps up, [then] those spaces will be occupied by state actors with different values.”

The main concern is that international broadcasters which are more aligned with a state, such as the international media services run by China and Russia, could step in as they already have done in certain parts of the world, and impose a certain narrative fitting their agenda. Larissa Bieler, from SWI swissinfo.ch warned about the aggressive disinformation driven by Russia and China around the globe and the threat it presents to democracy.

And while the EU tries to keep some RFE/RL operation afloat, some European public broadcasters are also expanding their services.

Is there a role for European PSM?

The Head of the TVP International Media Centre, Michał Broniatowski, told PMA that while losing RFE/RL would be a great loss for audiences – especially given what the international media represented for countries that used to be behind the iron curtain – there are other sources to which the audience could turn to.

The Polish broadcaster has been developing its international services for several years, focusing on providing information from the European perspective and countering Russian propaganda in Belarussian, Russian and Ukrainian. Recently, they started a new programme focusing on Moldova in Russian to reach the audience who is generally targeted by Russian propaganda. Broniatowski said that while it was not the main goal of the public broadcaster’s international services to replace RFE/RL, they have some resources to fill the gap.

Their channel Vot Tak serves a large audience across several countries where Russian is spoken, and “if needs be, special services can be launched so [TVP] can quickly start transmitting in local languages. Warsaw is very well located for such operations – infrastructure wise but also in terms of journalists. The city has become a focal point for journalists in exile coming from the East and Caucasus, who could be called if [TVP] needed to start these special services.”

“Coming from the other side of the Iron Curtain, actually it was [from] the radio that we got a lot of information. So, [RFE/RL] has been a beacon of democracy, very valuable in this regard.” – Kaja Kallas, EU Foreign Policy Chief

The current tense climate in the geopolitical and information landscape, fuelled by continual campaigns of mis-and disinformation, is prompting initiatives from public media organisations to address these growing threats. As Larissa Bieler told PMA, the mission of international public broadcasters “is going to become increasingly clearer in the future, as more geopolitical tensions and aggressive disinformation against facts and news are going to appear.”