Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

"Radio Free Europe" and "Radio Liberty" redirect here. For the R.E.M. song, see Radio Free Europe (song). For the UCKG UK radio station, see Liberty Radio.
Not to be confused with Radio Freedom.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
AbbreviationRFE/RL
Formation1949 (Radio Free Europe), 1953 (Radio Liberty), 1976 (merger)
Type501(c)3 organization[1][2]
52-1068522
PurposeBroadcast Media
HeadquartersPrague Broadcast Center
50°4′44″N 14°28′43″E / 50.07889°N 14.47861°E / 50.07889; 14.47861
Location
Official language
English
Programs are also available in Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bosnian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chechen, Crimean Tatar, Dari, Georgian, Hungarian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uzbek
In the past also Polish, Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and various other languages; see this list
OwnerU.S. Agency for Global Media
President
Stephen Capus[3]
Vice President and Head of News
Nicola Careem[4]
General Counsel/Secretary
Benjamin Herman[4]
Budget (Fiscal year 2021)
$124,300,000[5]
Staff>1700[5]
Website

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is an American government-funded international media organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analyses to Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. RFE/RL is a private 501(c)(3) corporation and is supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent government agency overseeing all international broadcasting services that receive American government support. Nicola Careem is the organization's editor-in-chief.

Presented in 27 languages to 23 countries,[7] RFE/RL has been headquartered in the Czech city of Prague since 1995 and has 21 local bureaus with over 500 core staff and 1,300 stringers and freelancers in countries throughout their broadcast region. Additionally, there are 680 employees at the organization's headquarters and corporate office in Washington, D.C.

During the Cold War, RFE was primarily aimed at broadcasting to Soviet satellite states, including the Baltic states, and RL targeted the Soviet Union itself. RFE was founded by the National Committee for a Free Europe as an anti-communist propaganda[8] source in 1949, while RL was founded two years later. They received funds covertly from the CIA until 1972.[9][10] The two organizations merged in 1976. Communist governments frequently sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters, and the Soviet Union's KGB regularly jammed the organization's radio signals. Between 1949 and 1995, RFE/RL was headquartered at Englischer Garten in the German city of Munich. Another broadcast site was operated at the Portuguese village of Glória do Ribatejo from 1951 to 1996. Since the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the organization's European operations have been reduced.

  1. ^ "Inspection of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty" (PDF). Office of Inspector General (United States). United States Department of State. 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
  2. ^ "RFE/RL – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – Source description". European Country of Origin Information Network. 26 June 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
  3. ^ "RFE/RL Senior Management". RFE/RL. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  4. ^ a b "Management And Governance". RFE/RL. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
  5. ^ a b "About Us". RFE/RL.
  6. ^ Staff Writer. (1 August 2024). "How To Bypass Blocking". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. www.rferl.org. Retrieved 1 August 2024.
  7. ^ "RFE/RL Language Services". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
  8. ^ Uttaro, Ralph A. (1982). "The voices of America in international radio propaganda". Law and Contemporary Problems. 45 (4): 103–122. doi:10.2307/1191297. JSTOR 1191297.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).