Radio Free Asia, one of four federally funded news organizations the Trump administration has aimed to close, will shut down its news operations on Friday for the first time since its founding in 1996, removing one of the few independent journalism outlets in Asian countries with limited press freedoms.
On Oct. 31, the organization will lay off dozens of its remaining journalists, close its regional offices in large Asian cities like Seoul, Istanbul and Bangkok, and halt language services targeting China, Vietnam, North Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia.
The news group’s expected closure can be attributed to the Trump administration’s broad efforts to cut federal funding, and to the government shutdown, which is entering its fifth week. Though it will still exist as a shell of its former self, it is unclear if or when Radio Free Asia will resume its news operations, even after the government reopens.
“Instead of passing a new budget or a new appropriation of any variety, the government shut down,” said Cameron Lang, a general counsel at Radio Free Asia. “So there’s no money coming through.”
Until this month, Radio Free Asia and other federally funded newsrooms had successfully resisted attempts from Trump officials to render them obsolete, after President Trump signed an executive order requiring the closure of their oversight agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
Courts have issued rulings ordering the administration to disburse funding Congress had allotted for the most recent fiscal year for Radio Free Asia and two other private, nonprofit news groups that depend on federal dollars. Those organizations had to make steep cuts to their programming and staffing, but they kept some news services in local languages for listeners in countries with repressive governments.
But with its funding nearly exhausted, Radio Free Asia will become the second federally funded newsroom to halt news operations, after Voice of America. As a federal agency, V.O.A. stopped all news production after the shutdown began, even though it operated during past lapses in federal funding, when it was designated as essential to national security.
Critics of the administration’s efforts to shutter federally funded news groups have warned that ceasing their news broadcasts would cede ground to Russian and Chinese propaganda networks that have moved aggressively to fill the vacuum.
The two U.S. adversaries each spend billions of dollars a year to disseminate content favorable to their governments, including disinformation, according to a recent State Department assessment. The U.S.-funded newsrooms received around $850 million in 2024.
Radio Free Asia has garnered widespread recognition, including awards for reporting on China’s human rights abuses of Uyghurs, widespread resistance in Myanmar against the military junta that staged a coup against a democratic government in 2021, and the perilous journey that North Koreans have risked taking to escape their country.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Before the Trump administration put its funding in jeopardy, Radio Free Asia reached nearly 60 million people every week in nine languages. Voice of America had a weekly audience of 360 million, broadcasting in 49 languages.
The two other private, nonprofit news groups, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, are still producing news content using the funding they received from the previous fiscal year. But they have also been forced to conduct layoffs and reduce news coverage.
The website of Middle East Broadcasting Networks counted a drop in visitors, from eight million a month to fewer than 300,000, according to internal metrics provided by the network.
A bill that would keep the government funded largely at the previous year’s spending levels would, in theory, provide funding for Radio Free Asia and other nonprofit news groups. But the Trump administration can again move to cut funding, as courts only barred it from doing so in the previous fiscal year.
In April, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia prohibited the administration from terminating funding to Radio Free Asia and the two other nonprofit news groups.
According to court filings, the administration wanted to unilaterally pause funds for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has the same funding structure as Radio Free Asia, and shut down parts of its programming, moves that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty argued were forbidden by Congress to ensure journalistic integrity.
Minho Kim covers breaking news and climate change for The Times. He is based in Washington.
The post Radio Free Asia Will Halt News Operations Amid Shutdown appeared first on New York Times.
