Q&A: Tamara Bralo on Fighting to Protect Radio Free Asia’s Journalists
The veteran journalist Tamara Bralo was at home in the Washington, DC, area when she learned one Saturday morning in March that the Trump administration was trying, via executive order, to terminate funding for Radio Free Asia, an international broadcaster under the US Agency for Global Media—part of a broader attempt to gut USAGM, which also oversees outlets including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “First, I sat for fifteen minutes,” Bralo said. Then came the deep concern for the scores of vulnerable RFA journalists she was charged with defending as part of her job. “After the initial disbelief, I tried figuring out what it meant for the reporters, how much time they had, what their options were, whom to talk to, whom to convince that they needed to be protected,” Bralo said. More than two chaotic months have passed since then, and that concern has become a constant in Bralo’s life.
Related Knowledge Center: Voiceless America
More than 80 years after its creation during World War II, President Trump is attempting to shut down the Voice of America, but his executive order is facing a skeptical response from the courts.
Related Knowledge Center: Free speech and public protest
The First Amendment is facing challenging times: Crackdowns on campus protests prompted both-sides claims of intolerance. Attempts to head off dangerous health misinformation have been characterized as violations of free speech. Donald Trump is publicly punishing news outlets that deviate from his administration’s version of events while privately suing some outlets into submission.
The White House vs. the press | Voiceless America
Related Knowledge Center: The White House vs. the press
Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.
Democracy and politics | Signalgate | The CBS submission | Voiceless America