6 ms·

Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. It isn’t really a credible source.

devy 6y ago
Yep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia
reaperducer 6y ago
Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's part of the United States government, and nobody has ever tried to keep that secret. Not RFA, not the U.S. Government. Nobody. "Deep ties" makes it seem like it's trying to be covert. It's not. It isn’t really a credible source. It's one of the more credible sources of news in Asia. Especially for more authoritarian countries. I used to know a number of its journalists, and they strive for neutrality and factual reporting in places where that is not allowed. It's the Asian version of Radio Marti, or Radio Free Europe. Funded by the U.S. taxpayers, run by the U.S. government, to bring information to the world. There's nothing new here. This has been going on longer than most of us have been alive. It's like BBC News, but without all of the sensationalism that has crept into the Beeb over the last couple of decades. Trying to paint it as some kind of covert propaganda machine illustrates a lack of knowledge, or a personal political agenda.
- Leary 6y ago
  NYTimes seems to disagree: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    That article is 44 years old. RFA isn't part of the CIA. It's part of U.S. Agency for Global Media. From Wikipedia: an independent agency of the United States government which operates various state-run media outlets.[2] It describes its mission, "vital to US national interests", to "inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy"[3] and in accordance with the "broad foreign policy objectives of the United States".[4] USAGM supervises Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio y Televisión Martí, Radio Free Asia, and Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa.
    - throw7482625 6y ago
      That’s literally the definition of propaganda. Why is it so difficult for Americans to believe that the US engages in a war of propaganda against countries it labels as “adversaries”? [1] [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...
      - reaperducer 6y ago
        No one said that the U.S. doesn't engage in propaganda. But RFA News isn't it. Why is it so difficult for Americans to believe Suggesting that "Americans" suffer from a lack of introspection reveals your own biases. 350 million people. 350 million different worldviews.
        jjcc 6y ago
        So in your view as one of 350 million, RFA is only(or mainly) set up for providing news to brainwashed Chinese people but not promoting democracy and universal human rights value?
        reaperducer 6y ago
        I said no such thing. You should not make assumptions about other people.
      - creato 6y ago
        I think the disconnect here is that at least for a large part of RFA/RFE's history, simply broadcasting fair and accurate news was effective "propaganda". Whether that's still true today or not is not something that anyone here is going to agree on.
        pessimizer 6y ago
        They never "simply" did this. They often did this, when the truth was good news for them, but so does RT.
  - SeanLuke 6y ago
    You're citing a news article from 1977 as your counterpoint?
    - zm262 6y ago
      RFA is still doing the same thing today. Technology has changed but their mission has not.
      - reaperducer 6y ago
        It's not the same organization. The RFA from the 1977 article and the RFA today were separated by 44 years. Perhaps you're confused because they have the same name.
      - SeanLuke 6y ago
        This simply isn't true. These are two different organizations.
  - tidepod12 6y ago
    That article, which is from 1977, is about an earlier incarnation of Radio Free Asia that was originally run by the CIA, but ceased operation in 1955 (the article even mentions this). The current RFA started broadcasting in 1996 and is under direction of the US Agency for Global Media. RFA is still run by the US Government, which is worth considering when talking about the possible biases of RFA... but the NYT article you linked has nothing to do with the current RFA.
- free_rms 6y ago
  It's not covert, but it's quite literally a propaganda machine. The reason Radio Free Europe/Asia were founded was to broadcast the benefits of 'freedom' into communist-governed areas. You might think that we're qualitatively the good guys, and I'm all for freedom, but that's definitionally 'propaganda'.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    I don't disagree that it was founded to try to convince the world that America is awesome. But "propaganda" is an overused term, and in this case, far too broad a brush. People who listen to RFA know this. People who don't only see that it's run by a U.S. government agency and think it's the equivalent of Soviet shortwave days. Not everything the government does is evil. Not everything the government publishes is propaganda.
    - shrimp_emoji 6y ago
      Everything's propaganda. Even "objective" facts presented with the omission of other "objective" facts is propaganda. Look at something you think isn't propaganda. That's propaganda for your particular brand of sensibility about what is or isn't propaganda. Propaganda is inescapable, like politics. It's all about whose you like the most at the present moment or which kind you're epistemically indoctrinated into. :3 (For me, I like scientific empiricism, but that position, too, is just a philosophical/political/propagandist leaning, frontloaded with all the assumptions and priors that go along with it. And I also think it's the best one, and I think it's dumb to disagree.)
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      "Propaganda" is an underused term. The propaganda industry renamed itself as the "public relations" industry (Bernays quite literally coined the term.) After that "propaganda" meant "public relations that I disapprove of i.e. communists." The overused term is "unbiased" which doesn't mean anything. The closest meaningful word to it is "disinterested" which means that the person conveying the information doesn't particularly care about it.
  - matthewdgreen 6y ago
- the-dude 6y ago
  How about the weapons of mass destruction?
- isthispermanent 6y ago
  Entirely possible, probably likely, that it's somewhere in the center. Not all propaganda and not all unbiased
  - thesimon 6y ago
    So basically the US version of RT?
    - fakedang 6y ago
      That's Voice of America, VOA
- YarickR2 6y ago
  As a former Soviet Union citizen I could say putting any organization on the same level as Radio Free Europe, or Voice of America, is the greatest shame for any news source. Those government funded mouthpieces serve one function, and one function only - to discredit ruling party, and sow dissent and discord. Gloves are off.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's not sensationalizing the facts, it's minimizing the facts. It's a pure propaganda project meant to manipulate public opinion outside of the US. It's the Asian version of Radio Marti, or Radio Free Europe. Funded by the U.S. taxpayers, run by the U.S. government, to improve the image of the U.S. in the world, to strengthen friendly governments and to weaken government enemies. It is an overt propaganda machine, but fully available for covert agencies to use as part of any project they wish. A great way to use it is to float a story, then get more legitimate outlets to report on the story using it as the source. It's like BBC News, if the BBC didn't broadcast to British people and was explicitly conceived as a propaganda arm of the government. So not really much like BBC news.
  - programmertote 6y ago
    You're right. I commented here a few times about how I grew up with my parents who are avid listeners to RFA, VOA, DVB, and BBC (channel specific to my country). Since we have military dictatorship back then, we trusted RFA, VOA more than our government's TV channels. I left for college in the US and learned who are feeding the news for VOA, RFA, DVB and where they are getting funding from, then I realized they are not that reliable news sources (and can be regarded as propaganda machines for people with vested interests). If one listens to VOA/RFA in my country, one would think that the US is a shining utopia and did nothing wrong in Iraq/Afghan invasions (9/11 just happened a few years before I left the country). The truth is that there is no objective news outlet in the world (even 'facts' fed to the unsuspecting reporters/journalists are dubitable).
naringas 6y ago
> It isn’t really a credible source. are there any "credible sources"? nowadays eveything is biased. the trick is being aware of the biases in your sources and reading sources with different biases.
JohnHaugeland 6y ago
It's an extremely credible source, in reality.
tshaddox 6y ago
Are there any sources reporting on China's domestic policies that don't have deep ties to either China or US agencies?
- dragonelite 6y ago
  The Foreign policy magazine did a nice series around xmass, about how much the US had corrupted the communist part. The very reason Xi did his purging rounds to cut away the US influence from China. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/22/china-us-data-intelligence-cybersecurity-xi-jinping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/22/china-us-data-intellige... Edit: misread your comment but the series is quiet good, not what you asked for tho from a neutral source.
jjcc 6y ago
The same as VOA, Epoch time(This one is not directly sponsored by government fund). Their main audience are not English speakers. Some of Chinese audience see the news in somehow opposite direction: True is likely(but not certainly) False. It's a little more than "not credible". There is another group always fighting against non-believers and saying they are "wumao" To some point VOA (A lot of Chinese think they are the same but actually not.Just content similar) was criticized by US government that they are helping CCP. What they really did was put some objective/neutral news. It's likely that the management tried to improve their impression and make them more conceptional because Chinese editors of VOA seem quite delusional to fabricate stories. They are much better now that they misleading with some events really happened but mixed with their interpretations. A lot of their content show up in: https://www.backchina.com/news/ https://www.backchina.com/news/ You have to under Chinese though.
trianglem 6y ago
This sound like a very credible source then.

devy 6y ago

Yep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia

Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's part of the United States government, and nobody has ever tried to keep that secret. Not RFA, not the U.S. Government. Nobody. "Deep ties" makes it seem like it's trying to be covert. It's not. It isn’t really a credible source. It's one of the more credible sources of news in Asia. Especially for more authoritarian countries. I used to know a number of its journalists, and they strive for neutrality and factual reporting in places where that is not allowed. It's the Asian version of Radio Marti, or Radio Free Europe. Funded by the U.S. taxpayers, run by the U.S. government, to bring information to the world. There's nothing new here. This has been going on longer than most of us have been alive. It's like BBC News, but without all of the sensationalism that has crept into the Beeb over the last couple of decades. Trying to paint it as some kind of covert propaganda machine illustrates a lack of knowledge, or a personal political agenda.

Leary 6y ago
NYTimes seems to disagree: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...
- reaperducer 6y ago
  That article is 44 years old. RFA isn't part of the CIA. It's part of U.S. Agency for Global Media. From Wikipedia: an independent agency of the United States government which operates various state-run media outlets.[2] It describes its mission, "vital to US national interests", to "inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy"[3] and in accordance with the "broad foreign policy objectives of the United States".[4] USAGM supervises Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio y Televisión Martí, Radio Free Asia, and Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa.
  - throw7482625 6y ago
    That’s literally the definition of propaganda. Why is it so difficult for Americans to believe that the US engages in a war of propaganda against countries it labels as “adversaries”? [1] [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      No one said that the U.S. doesn't engage in propaganda. But RFA News isn't it. Why is it so difficult for Americans to believe Suggesting that "Americans" suffer from a lack of introspection reveals your own biases. 350 million people. 350 million different worldviews.
      - jjcc 6y ago
        So in your view as one of 350 million, RFA is only(or mainly) set up for providing news to brainwashed Chinese people but not promoting democracy and universal human rights value?
        reaperducer 6y ago
        I said no such thing. You should not make assumptions about other people.
    - creato 6y ago
      I think the disconnect here is that at least for a large part of RFA/RFE's history, simply broadcasting fair and accurate news was effective "propaganda". Whether that's still true today or not is not something that anyone here is going to agree on.
      - pessimizer 6y ago
        They never "simply" did this. They often did this, when the truth was good news for them, but so does RT.
- SeanLuke 6y ago
  You're citing a news article from 1977 as your counterpoint?
  - zm262 6y ago
    RFA is still doing the same thing today. Technology has changed but their mission has not.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      It's not the same organization. The RFA from the 1977 article and the RFA today were separated by 44 years. Perhaps you're confused because they have the same name.
    - SeanLuke 6y ago
      This simply isn't true. These are two different organizations.
- tidepod12 6y ago
  That article, which is from 1977, is about an earlier incarnation of Radio Free Asia that was originally run by the CIA, but ceased operation in 1955 (the article even mentions this). The current RFA started broadcasting in 1996 and is under direction of the US Agency for Global Media. RFA is still run by the US Government, which is worth considering when talking about the possible biases of RFA... but the NYT article you linked has nothing to do with the current RFA.
free_rms 6y ago
It's not covert, but it's quite literally a propaganda machine. The reason Radio Free Europe/Asia were founded was to broadcast the benefits of 'freedom' into communist-governed areas. You might think that we're qualitatively the good guys, and I'm all for freedom, but that's definitionally 'propaganda'.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  I don't disagree that it was founded to try to convince the world that America is awesome. But "propaganda" is an overused term, and in this case, far too broad a brush. People who listen to RFA know this. People who don't only see that it's run by a U.S. government agency and think it's the equivalent of Soviet shortwave days. Not everything the government does is evil. Not everything the government publishes is propaganda.
  - shrimp_emoji 6y ago
    Everything's propaganda. Even "objective" facts presented with the omission of other "objective" facts is propaganda. Look at something you think isn't propaganda. That's propaganda for your particular brand of sensibility about what is or isn't propaganda. Propaganda is inescapable, like politics. It's all about whose you like the most at the present moment or which kind you're epistemically indoctrinated into. :3 (For me, I like scientific empiricism, but that position, too, is just a philosophical/political/propagandist leaning, frontloaded with all the assumptions and priors that go along with it. And I also think it's the best one, and I think it's dumb to disagree.)
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    "Propaganda" is an underused term. The propaganda industry renamed itself as the "public relations" industry (Bernays quite literally coined the term.) After that "propaganda" meant "public relations that I disapprove of i.e. communists." The overused term is "unbiased" which doesn't mean anything. The closest meaningful word to it is "disinterested" which means that the person conveying the information doesn't particularly care about it.
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
the-dude 6y ago
How about the weapons of mass destruction?
isthispermanent 6y ago
Entirely possible, probably likely, that it's somewhere in the center. Not all propaganda and not all unbiased
- thesimon 6y ago
  So basically the US version of RT?
  - fakedang 6y ago
    That's Voice of America, VOA
YarickR2 6y ago
As a former Soviet Union citizen I could say putting any organization on the same level as Radio Free Europe, or Voice of America, is the greatest shame for any news source. Those government funded mouthpieces serve one function, and one function only - to discredit ruling party, and sow dissent and discord. Gloves are off.
pessimizer 6y ago
> "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's not sensationalizing the facts, it's minimizing the facts. It's a pure propaganda project meant to manipulate public opinion outside of the US. It's the Asian version of Radio Marti, or Radio Free Europe. Funded by the U.S. taxpayers, run by the U.S. government, to improve the image of the U.S. in the world, to strengthen friendly governments and to weaken government enemies. It is an overt propaganda machine, but fully available for covert agencies to use as part of any project they wish. A great way to use it is to float a story, then get more legitimate outlets to report on the story using it as the source. It's like BBC News, if the BBC didn't broadcast to British people and was explicitly conceived as a propaganda arm of the government. So not really much like BBC news.
- programmertote 6y ago
  You're right. I commented here a few times about how I grew up with my parents who are avid listeners to RFA, VOA, DVB, and BBC (channel specific to my country). Since we have military dictatorship back then, we trusted RFA, VOA more than our government's TV channels. I left for college in the US and learned who are feeding the news for VOA, RFA, DVB and where they are getting funding from, then I realized they are not that reliable news sources (and can be regarded as propaganda machines for people with vested interests). If one listens to VOA/RFA in my country, one would think that the US is a shining utopia and did nothing wrong in Iraq/Afghan invasions (9/11 just happened a few years before I left the country). The truth is that there is no objective news outlet in the world (even 'facts' fed to the unsuspecting reporters/journalists are dubitable).

naringas 6y ago

> It isn’t really a credible source. are there any "credible sources"? nowadays eveything is biased. the trick is being aware of the biases in your sources and reading sources with different biases.

JohnHaugeland 6y ago

It's an extremely credible source, in reality.

tshaddox 6y ago

Are there any sources reporting on China's domestic policies that don't have deep ties to either China or US agencies?

dragonelite 6y ago
The Foreign policy magazine did a nice series around xmass, about how much the US had corrupted the communist part. The very reason Xi did his purging rounds to cut away the US influence from China. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/22/china-us-data-intelligence-cybersecurity-xi-jinping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/22/china-us-data-intellige... Edit: misread your comment but the series is quiet good, not what you asked for tho from a neutral source.

jjcc 6y ago

The same as VOA, Epoch time(This one is not directly sponsored by government fund). Their main audience are not English speakers. Some of Chinese audience see the news in somehow opposite direction: True is likely(but not certainly) False. It's a little more than "not credible". There is another group always fighting against non-believers and saying they are "wumao" To some point VOA (A lot of Chinese think they are the same but actually not.Just content similar) was criticized by US government that they are helping CCP. What they really did was put some objective/neutral news. It's likely that the management tried to improve their impression and make them more conceptional because Chinese editors of VOA seem quite delusional to fabricate stories. They are much better now that they misleading with some events really happened but mixed with their interpretations. A lot of their content show up in: https://www.backchina.com/news/ https://www.backchina.com/news/ You have to under Chinese though.

trianglem 6y ago

This sound like a very credible source then.