A federal judge has temporarily blocked the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) from cutting off funding to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, citing a lack of proper justification. The ruling allows the network to continue operations while the legal case moves forward.
Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in North Carolina
A Note to Our Readers: On the USAGM Shutdowns and Keeping the Conversation Respectful
At the SWLing Post, we’ve always strived to keep this space a safe haven — free from the divisive politics that so often cloud the media landscape. Our focus remains on sharing the joy of radio, supporting international broadcasting, and fostering a welcoming community for all.
That said, some stories, like the abrupt shutdown of U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) broadcasters, inevitably carry political weight. While we may wish otherwise, it’s impossible to separate the politics from the reality of this significant event. As one of the few remaining government-supported shortwave broadcasters, the sudden silencing of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio Martí, and others deserves our attention.
I’ve personally confirmed with multiple trusted sources that the transmitters at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station were shut down on Sunday, March 16, 2025, marking a stark and sudden end to these broadcasts from US soil.
We recognize this news may stir strong opinions — and that’s okay. However, we kindly ask that all comments remain respectful and constructive. Share your thoughts, but please avoid name-calling, trolling, or inflammatory language. Our moderators will step in without hesitation to ensure the discussion remains civil.
In the past, we’ve occasionally disabled comments on similarly charged topics. This time, though, given the importance of the event, we’ll keep the conversation open — provided it stays respectful.
Below, you’ll find a collection of reports shared by our readerships from various sources that offer different perspectives on this unprecedented moment in international broadcasting.
Thank you for being part of this community and for helping us keep the SWLing Post a place for thoughtful dialogue and mutual respect.
A conversation with a shortwave veteran
For many in the world of radio, the move by the Trump administration this weekend to shut down U.S. international broadcasting was shocking. Jeff White used the term “rather brash.”
White is general manager of WRMI Radio Miami International as well as secretary-treasurer of the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB) and a 40 years-plus veteran of shortwave radio.
He has a lot of experience in this area, so Radio World reached out to him on Monday for his thoughts about the effective silencing of the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Martí, Radio Free Asia and other broadcasting entities operated by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. That all is based on an executive order to reduce “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”
Radio World: When you heard the news of VOA and its sister services shutting down transmissions worldwide, what was your reaction to it?
Jeff White: Holy cow!
In a way some of this had been expected, but when it happened all of a sudden like that on Saturday morning it was pretty shocking.
I started getting emails early Saturday morning from people at the VOA who said, “Hey, everybody’s been laid off and everything’s shut down.” And they said that they had talked to some of the people at the overseas relay stations, and the managers had gotten word about the shutdown, but the employees had not.
Now those employees are hired by the local embassies, and so they kept these relay stations operating, and if they didn’t get programming coming from Washington, they filled with music. [Continue reading interview…]
by Ted Lipien, Opinion Contributor – 03/17/25 10:00 AM ET
President Trump’s decision to shut down the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio y Televisión Martí in Cuba and other U.S. government-funded media entities overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, was sudden, harmful and deeply unfair. It places journalists in foreign language services who have devoted years of their lives to their jobs and have done nothing wrong in an impossible position.
To be sure, these agencies have suffered from terrible management decisions in recent years. But to break things by stopping all programming does not make these agencies better. Rather, it weakens their usefulness to U.S. national security.
Members of Congress from both parties must pressure the White House to allow these broadcasters to resume their work as soon as possible, even while supporting the administration’s efforts to restructure, downsize and reform the agency’s bloated and dysfunctional bureaucracy. [Continue reading…]
For the better part of a century, Voice of America has broadcast into countries whose governments censored free information. The Trump administration has dismantled VOA’s parent organization, put all of its employees on leave and ended funding for independent media agencies. Nick Schifrin discussed the move with Mike Abramovitz, the president of Voice of America since last year.
Global Times hails US president’s order to strip back government funding to news organisations he deems ‘radical’
Chinese state media has reacted gleefully to the Trump administration’s decision to slash government funding to media organisations such as Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA).
The Global Times, a daily English-language tabloid and Chinese Communist party mouthpiece, celebrated the cuts to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees broadcasters such as VOA and RFA.
“When it comes to China-related reporting, VOA has an appalling track record,” the Global Times said in an editorial on Monday.
“From smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang … to hyping up disputes in the South China Sea … from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative to promoting the claim of China’s ‘overcapacity’, almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it,” the editorial said.
The Beijing Daily, a newspaper run by the Chinese Communist party (CCP), also published a column commending the cuts. [Continue reading…]
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 Czech Republic is pushing for EU support to keep Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) running after the Trump administration cut funding for the global broadcaster.
Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said RFE/RL, based in Prague, “is one of the few credible sources in dictatorships like Iran, Belarus, and Afghanistan”.
In Eastern Europe, the US government-funded outlet reached millions of listeners during the Cold War, helping to spread democratic values while communist authorities tightly controlled local media. [Continue reading…]
The US government is halting financial support for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), whose headquarters is based in Prague. The organization has 21 bureaus and broadcasts in 27 languages to 23 countries, promoting independent journalism. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský is discussing whether the EU can take over and continue broadcasting at the Council of Europe meeting in Brussels on Monday. [Continue reading…]
‘A silencing of VOA will be celebrated by communists, autocrats and ayatollahs whose lies we shed light on,’ VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb tweeted over the weekend
In what is being described as “Bloody Saturday,” over 1,300 employees at Voice of America were placed on indefinite suspension this weekend after President Donald Trump issued a Friday night edict ordering the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the network’s parent agency, to eliminate its workforce and activities not required by law.
With the state-funded broadcaster — which has been seen as a vital part of America’s soft diplomacy — going largely silent after more than 80 years on the air, VOA journalists and executives are sounding off over what they see as a “betrayal of the ideals” that drove the organization, adding that it will only be “celebrated” by America’s adversaries.
Two days after Trump bristled at a VOA reporter for asking the Irish prime minister about the president’s proposal to displace all Palestinians from Gaza, the White House released an executive order on Friday night that outright gutted the USAGM, which also oversees Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, as well as other non-profit international media outlets. [Continue reading…]
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively eliminates the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio Liberty and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
It’s a move seen by many as Trump’s effort to silence prodemocracy media around the world.
“Hundreds of millions of people are affected,” said Steve Herman, chief national correspondent at Voice of America, who agreed to speak with WTOP in a personal capacity, not as a representative of VOA.
He is currently on administrative leave, along with about 1,300 other VOA employees.
He said the firings could have a chilling effect on prodemocracy media, saying people who live in censored countries where the government controls the news will be at a disadvantage. [Continue reading…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Lin Robertson, who shares a link to the USAGM Congressional Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2023.
Click here to download the PDF.
If you’re interested in how shortwave services are being affected by the budget, you can do a simple search for the word “shortwave.”
One change of note to the Greenville, NC, transmitting station (page 37):
In FY 2023, USAGM is proposing a realignment of the ERM transmitting station
in Greenville, North Carolina under the USAGM’s Office of Technology, Services,
and Innovation (TSI), which currently is responsible for other of USAGM’s
transmitting stations. The realignment of shortwave resources will effectively
enhance the overall USAGM broadcast mission capabilities by aligning all content
distribution platforms as managed by TSI. This action will decrease OCB’s general
operating expenses by approximately $2.1 million annually
This is a 197 page document and traditional over-the-air services are mentioned frequently.
If you notice relevant points to shortwave services feel free to point them out in the comments and note the page number! Thank you!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tracy Wood, who shares a link to the latest episode of CBS’ 60 Minutes which highlights both the mission and work of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
This episode can be watched on the CBS website by clicking here.
Thank you for the tip, Tracy.
Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
This is the story of one of the ABC’s best kept secrets.
ABC Radio Australia was never intended to be a great secret. It was just the nature of the service that few Australians knew about it. When I hosted its breakfast program for nine years, I could count on one hand the number of people who knew what I was talking about when I told them I worked for RA.
Most people mistakenly thought it was the same thing as Radio National. I would have to explain, yet again, that this was our version of the BBC World Service, a worldwide broadcaster.
RA was founded at the start of the World War II by prime minister Robert Menzies as an antidote to the disinformation being broadcast by Australia’s new enemies, Germany and Russia. The idea of Australia Calling, as the service was initially named, was to provide an antidote to this propaganda, to counter that aerial bilge with factual, balanced and fair reportage.
So with a small team of English, Spanish, Dutch and French broadcasters, a minuscule budget and some tiny transmitters in antiquated shacks in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia joined the short-wave age in December 1939. [Continue reading…]
Situated on the northwest tip of New Zealand’s north island, and home to the historically significant Waitangi Treaty Grounds, the Northland region is to receive a funding boost to strengthen its AM broadcasting infrastructure.
New Zealand’s Minister of Broadcasting and Media, Willie Jackson, and Minister for Emergency Management, Kieran McAnulty, have announced a NZD$1.48 million package to fund the repair and replacement of three transmission masts in Northland to ensure AM radio can stay on air in the region.
“This funding will secure the reinstatement of the Waipapakauri mast, which services Far North communities, and replace the masts at ?taika and ?haeawai which are on their last legs,” Willie Jackson said. “This will ensure that Northland communities retain their access to AM transmission in areas that are not serviced by FM frequencies.
“RNZ has already completed work to reinstate the Waipapakauri mast, which went back on air today.”
Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty said radio is a critical information channel to help reach New Zealanders in an emergency.
“When emergencies happen, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and local Civil Defence Groups work with the media to issue warnings and other critical information. We rely on radio as our number one emergency info channel as it is the most resilient and widely available form of public communication.
“Northland is especially reliant on AM radio due to its remote and rugged terrain, its exposure to hazards like tsunamis, and limited access to cellular service and other information sources,” Kieran McAnulty said. [Continue reading…]
The TALIBAN has shut down several VOICE OF AMERICA RADIO ASHNA FM repeaters and has blocked RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY’s Afghan service RADIO AZADI, alleging that the U.S.-backed outlets are violating Afghani press laws and journalistic principles.
A statement from the VOA said that the move, which it noted broke a multiyear contract between the stations and the Afghan government, “is a blow to the large audience that turns to RADIO ASHNA for uncensored news and information. VOA broadcasts provided the people of AFGHANISTAN uncensored perspectives and hope. They gave ordinary Afghans a voice through call-in programs and discussion shows about subjects censored by domestic media. On VOA programs, topics ranged from the increasing isolation of AFGHANISTAN’s current government and the second-class status of women and girls as a result of the TALIBAN’s policies to the persistent economic failures that have diminished the quality of life in AFGHANISTAN since the TALIBAN takeover.”
“Many programs were anchored by women,” said Acting VOA Director YOLANDA LÓPEZ. “Removing VOA from the domestic airwaves will not silence us. It will only increase the importance of serving the captive audience inside AFGHANISTAN.”
The statement noted that the VOA reaches 7.3 million adults per week in the country, with almost half of those listening on broadcast radio; the service can also be heard via satellite TV, shortwave, AM, streaming, and social media and is “actively exploring additional ways to provide our content and fulfill our mission of serving our audience in AFGHANISTAN.” [Continue reading…]
US-funded Voice of America said Taliban authorities pointed to “complaints” about their programing. Radio Free Europe was also banned by the Islamist regime.
Voice of America (VOA) and the AP press agency reported that Taliban authorities banned radio broadcasting from VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Afghanistan from Thursday.
According to VOA, the Taliban authorities cited “complaints they have received about programming content” as reason for the ban.
However, there were no further details provided about the alleged complaints, VOA shared in a press statement.
Both VOA and RFE are funded by the US government, but “operate with journalistic independence and aim to provide comprehensive, balanced coverage,” the statement continued.
Whether or not the ban will be extended to other international broadcasters in Afghanistan remains unclear at this point.
In March, some parts of DW’s Afghan programing were stopped from being rebroadcast by Afghan partners, and BBC news bulletins in Pashto, Persian and Uzbek also taken off air.
Taliban say VOA and RFE ‘failed to show professionalism’
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi told AP his country had laws regulating the media and any network that was “repeatedly contravening” them would be banned.
“VOA and Azadi Radio (Radio Liberty) failed to adhere to these laws, were found as repeat offenders, failed to show professionalism and were therefore shut down,” he said.
The Taliban regime has been cracking down on press freedom in the country by imposing restrictions on media and journalists since seizing power last year. [Continue reading…]
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Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Note this article has been translated in English. Original in Ukrainian found here.
The police promptly responded to the call, but the SBU for some reason delays its response to illegal actions People’s deputy Mykola Knyazhytskyi announced this on Facebook .
“In Lviv, journalist Vitaly Portnikov, who hosts programs on Espresso and Radio Svoboda, found a eavesdropping device at home. It is a voice recorder with the ability to record for a long time. The police were called. They arrived quickly. The SBU was called. They are not going. As a member of the Verkhovna Rada, I ask the SBU to come immediately and disrupt case. We don’t know who installed this device and for what purpose: our services, foreign services or criminality,” the politician said.
Image via Espreso
Vitaly Portnikov commented on the incident for “Espresso”:
“Today, while cleaning the apartment I lived in at the end of February, when the war started, I found a recording device under the bed. The device had an inventory number. I informed the law enforcement authorities about my discovery so that they could investigate this incident.”
The journalist added that he hoped for a high-quality investigation and clarification of all the circumstances of the case:
“After my statement, the investigators of the SBU of the Lviv region conducted an inspection of the premises and seized a device that is a device for listening and recording information. I hope that the relevant structures will conduct an examination and find out by whom and why this device was placed in my apartment.”
Vitaly Portnikov is a well-known Ukrainian journalist, publicist and political commentator. Cooperates with Radio Svoboda and Espresso. On the Espresso TV channel, he creates the programs “Political Club of Vitaly Portnikov” and “Saturday Political Club”. [Click here to read the full article at Espreso.]
This Episode explore three stories of cold war era radio in the USSR: Soviet Radio Jammers, the Russian ‘Woodpecker’ and the Soviet Radio Hooligans
[Click here to listen to the podcast via PodBean.]
We meet with Russian broadcaster Vladimir Raevsky to talk about radio jamming in cold war era Soviet Union.
As East and West super powers square up to each with nuclear weapons, a parallel invisible war is being fought in the airwaves. Continue reading
Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio
Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
A journalist working for Radio Liberty in Ukraine was killed in Russian rocket strikes on Kyiv on Thursday evening, the station has confirmed.
Vira Hyrych was at home when a rocket hit the residential building where she lived in the capital, it says. Her body was pulled from the wreckage on Friday.
She “will be remembered for her professionalism and dedication to our mission”, the US-funded station says.
Kyiv was hit as UN Secretary General António Guterres was visiting the city.
The UN chief – who only a day earlier had held talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin – said he was “shocked” by the Russian attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Kremlin of trying to humiliate the UN, while Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said the Russian leader had shown “his middle finger” to Mr Guterres.
Moscow has confirmed it hit Ukrainian targets, but has not commented on the strike on the building.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of our Ukrainian Service staffer Vira Hyrych in Kyiv overnight,” Radio Liberty President Jamie Fly said in a statement.
“We are shocked and angered by the senseless nature of her death at home in a country and city she loved. Her memory will inspire our work in Ukraine and beyond for years to come.” [Continue reading…]
A group calling itself the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America has filed a petition with the FCC asking the Commission to revoke the license of the translator owned by John Garziglia. FM translator W288BS in Reston, Virginia rebroadcasts WZHF-AM in the Washington DC metro which carries Radio Sputnik. Continue reading