WASHINGTON—Marking a key milestone in its history, when listeners in Beijing first tuned in to Radio Free Asia’s inaugural Mandarin broadcast on Sept. 29, 1996, RFA President and CEO Bay Fang outlined a refreshed strategic direction and vision for the company.
“A year ago, RFA’s future was far from certain,” Fang said. “Today, we are in a very different place. As we mark 30 years of RFA, we are also beginning an important new chapter—rebuilding our organization from the ground up and laying the foundation for RFA’s next 30 years.
“We have been given the rare opportunity to reimagine RFA, building on what makes our journalism unique while embracing new ways to serve our audiences. We are taking decisive steps to create an organization that puts innovation, safety, security, and efficiency at the heart of everything we do—and, above all, remains focused on the audiences who depend on RFA for independent, fact-based reporting.
“The road ahead will not be without challenges. But RFA has been tested before, and we know what it means to persevere. Today, a small but exceptional team is leading this organization forward with a clear sense of purpose. We are still here because our journalists, our supporters, and the millions of people who rely on RFA understand something fundamental: truth needs a voice, and RFA is determined to keep providing it.”
For the past year, RFA has sustained its language teams on a contract basis, producing social media and platform-native news and programming, including long- and short-form podcasts, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, and video explainers. RFA is self-financing limited shortwave radio broadcasts, as it still lacks access to transmitters and satellites previously provided by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that disburses RFA’s congressionally appropriated funding. Despite challenges, RFA has produced impactful stories about Uyghur forced labor, exclusive interviews with Chinese spies and dissidents, and in-depth analyses of satellite data exposing North Korea’s military developments.
While maintaining its journalistic output, RFA is engaging in a multi-phase, two-year plan. This involves hiring permanent staff while shifting to a digital-first strategy to better engage with its audiences in China, North Korea, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. In addition to reimagining its editorial process, RFA is also reorganizing its structure, changing its embedded culture for a more dynamic newsroom with a premium on journalistic safety and security. This includes utilizing innovative means to drive news out of some of the world’s toughest media environments, and rebalancing half of its workforce overseas—especially its newsgathering teams—to be closer to sources and breaking developments. This is especially pertinent for key story areas on transnational repression, high-stakes geopolitical tensions in the Pacific and South China Sea, crackdowns on free expression and religious freedom, and cross-border crime—including Southeast Asia-based scamming centers—among other issues. In the first phase, RFA has prioritized the development of its Korean and Mandarin desks, with remaining language units to follow.