Polish Up the Gray

In March, after the Trump administration outlined plans to gut the US Agency for Global Media, the entity that oversees state-funded international broadcasters, Jan Lipavský, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, publicly called on the European Union to help save one of them: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is based in Prague, the Czech capital, and aims to provide independent journalism to and about societies, in Eastern Europe and beyond, where it is restricted, in a range of languages. “We will try to do everything to keep this organization with seventy-five years of legacy afloat,” he said. Behind closed doors, Lipavský spurred a discussion about RFE/RL’s future with other EU foreign ministers, and reportedly found support for his stance from countries including Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia; afterward, Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister who is now the EU’s top diplomat, said that the bloc would see what it could do, but warned that help for RFE/RL would not come “automatically.” A few weeks later, lawmakers in the European Parliament debated the matter; voices from across the traditional political spectrum called for the EU to give money, but right-wing populists dissented, suggesting that RFE/RL is “the absolute opposite of independent media” and that funding it would be tantamount to meddling in US affairs; there was no immediate resolution. At the beginning of this month, RFE/RL did land an outside funding pledge—from the American band REM, which said that it would reissue its 1981 debut single, “Radio Free Europe,” as a gesture of support, with proceeds going to the broadcaster. (“Decide yourself if radio’s gonna stay / Reason, it could polish up the gray.”)