Radio Free Asia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit corporation that broadcasts news and information in nine native Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. The purpose of RFA is to provide a forum for a variety of opinions and voices from within these Asian countries.

1 History and mission
2 See also
3 Literature
4 External links
5 Related news & information
6 References

[edit] History and mission

Language Service	Launch Date	Daily Broadcast Hours
Broadcasting Information
Burmese	February, 1997	2 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Cantonese	May, 1998	2 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Khmer	September, 1997	2 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Korean	March, 1997	4 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Lao	August, 1997	2 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Mandarin	September, 1996	12 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Tibetan	December, 1996	8 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Uyghur	December, 1998	2 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week
Vietnamese	February, 1997	2 Hours/Day, 7 Days/Week

Radio Free Asia was originally founded and funded in 1950 by the CIA through a front organization called "Committee for Free Asia" as an anti-communist propaganda operation, broadcasting from Manila, the Philippines, and Dacca and Karachi, Pakistan (there may be other sites) until 1961. Some offices were in Tokyo. The parent organization was given as the Asia Foundation. In 1971 CIA involvement ended and all responsibilities were transferred to a presidentially appointed Board for International Broadcasting (BIB).^[1]

In 1994, the operation was revived by the International Broadcasting Act and began its operations in 1996. It is now a private, non-profit corporation funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The BBG is funded by the Congress of the United States and its stated mission is "to promote and sustain freedom and democracy by broadcasting accurate and objective news and information about the United States and the world to audiences overseas".

RFA broadcasts in 9 languages, via shortwave and the Internet. The first transmission was in Mandarin Chinese and it is RFA's most elaborate service as it is broadcast twelve hours per day. RFA also broadcasts in Cantonese, Tibetan (Kham, Amdo, and Uke dialects), Uyghur, Burmese, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer (to Cambodia) and Korean (to North Korea).

RFA's mission statement: "RFA broadcasts news and information to Asian listeners who lack regular access to full and balanced reporting in their domestic media. Through its broadcasts and call-in programs, RFA aims to fill a critical gap in the lives of people across Asia."

The U.S. International Broadcasting Act of 1994 (PL 103-236, title III) is more explicit about the mission of RFA: "the continuation of existing U.S. international broadcasting, and the creation of a new broadcasting service to people of the People's Republic of China and other countries of Asia, which lack adequate sources of free information and ideas, would enhance the promotion of information and ideas, while advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy." (emphasis added)

Catharin Dalpino of the Brookings Institution, who served in the Clinton State Department as a deputy assistant secretary deputy for human rights, has called Radio Free Asia "a waste of money". "Wherever we feel there is an ideological enemy, we're going to have a Radio Free Something," she says. Dalpino said she has reviewed scripts of Radio Free Asia's broadcasts and views the station's reporting as unbalanced. "They lean very heavily on reports by and about dissidents in exile. It doesn't sound like reporting about what's going in a country. Often, it reads like a textbook on democracy, which is fine, but even to an American it's rather propagandistic."^[2]

[edit] See also

[edit] Literature

Tom Engelhardt: The End of Victory Culture. Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation (University of Massachusetts Press 1998); ISBN 1-55849-133-3.
Helen Laville, Hugh Wilford: The US Government, Citizen Groups And the Cold War. The State-Private Network (Routledge 1996); ISBN 0-415-35608-3.
Daya Kishan Thussu: International Communication. Continuity and Change (Arnold 2000); ISBN 0-340-74130-9.
Andrew Defty: Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda, 1945-53. The Information Research Department (Routledge 2004); ISBN 0-7146-5443-4.