US state-funded media puts employees on unpaid leave
The US state-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) began furloughing staff at its Prague headquarters on Tuesday, citing the lack of money for April.
RFE/RL was originally created to spread pro-Western propaganda in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War and was funded by the CIA. It most recently depended on grants from the US Congress.
On March 14, President Donald Trump signed an executive order drastically cutting funds for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees RFE/RL and Voice of America.
On March 25, a Washington DC judge temporarily blocked the USAGM from defunding RFE/RL, however the outlet said on Tuesday that, despite the ruling, it has not received new money from the government.
“Although USAGM rescinded its letter terminating RFE/RL’s grant agreement on March 26, RFE/RL has not received any of its congressionally appropriated funds since that date – and USAGM has not approved RFE/RL’s financial plan for April,” the news outlet wrote on its website.
RFE/RL added that it has asked the judge to grant a temporary restraining order guaranteeing its funding in April and an injunction to ensure it will have the money “for the remainder of the current fiscal year.”
“Our staff and their families are now paying the price as RFE/RL continues to wait for USAGM to provide our congressionally appropriated funds,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement.
The White House has argued that the defunding of RFE/RL was part of Trump’s campaign to cut public spending and eliminate “unnecessary” bureaucracy.
Tech billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called for RFE/RL to be “shut down.” “Nobody listens to them anymore,” Musk wrote on X in February.
