The head of German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Peter Limbourg, on Monday urged a rethink of drastic cuts to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
US President Donald Trump‘s decision has left the future of broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) hanging in the balance. The move also includes massive layoffs at US international broadcaster Voice of America (VOA).
What did DW’s Limbourg say about Trump’s cuts?
DW head Limbourg warned that authoritarian governments such as Moscow and Beijing would seek to fill the gap left by any US retreat from state-funded international broadcasting.
“What Trump has done is weakened freedom and strengthened autocracy,” said Limbourg adding that DW and other international public media organizations would be unable to fill the void alone.
“Based on the previous experiences of our colleagues in Europe, as long as there is a vacuum, the Chinese and Russians will intervene, and that is regrettable.”
“That is why I believe that Europe urgently, really urgently, must do something. This is not a trivial issue. This is a very important issue.”
Limbourg emphasized that, as a result of the risk of disinformation from authoritarian governments, political leaders in Europe needed to ensure adequate funding for their own international media.
‘A blow for press freedom,’ from China to Zimbabwe
Maren Pfalzgraf of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) told DW the move by the Trump administration was “really a serious blow to press freedom.”
“The decision affects millions of people worldwide who were supplied with independent information by US foreign broadcasters.”
In Zimbabwe, for example, Voice of America has up to now been broadcast in the three most important languages of communication: English, Shona and Ndebele. The country is ranked only at 116th place in RSF’s press freedom index due to intimidation of independent journalists, among other things.
A Zimbabwean reporter who has mainly worked for VOA told DW: “The government-controlled media has so far ignored issues such as human rights, corruption and so on. On social media, government representatives and supporters shouted for joy on the weekend. That says everything about what an important medium VOA has been so far.”
Journalist Chang Ping, from DW’s Chinese service, remembers how vital information from VOA broadcasts was during the pro-democracy protests in China in 1989.
“At that time, it was the most reliable uncensored source of information that assured us of international attention for the Chinese democracy movement and encouraged the student protests,” Chang writes.
“All independent Chinese journalists, human rights lawyers, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians and other human rights activists have been supported in some way by Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Especially since Xi Jinping has been in power, the media situation in China has deteriorated, making these uncensored reports even more valuable.”
Trump targets international broadcaster
Trump signed an executive order Friday targeting VOA’s parent USAGM in his latest sweeping cuts to the federal government.
The agency had 3,384 employees in the 2023 fiscal year and had requested $950 million for the current financial year.
The programs for which USAGM is responsible reach some 420 million people per week in 63 languages and more than 100 countries.
Both DW and USAGM are members of the DG8 network, which comprises eight international public media organizations.
Other members are the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the UK’s BBC World Service, CBC/Radio-Canada, France Medias Monde, NHK WORLD-JAPAN, and the Swiss broadcaster SRG SSR.
