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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcasting media platform that reports uncensored news across 23 countries “where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established.” RFE/RL now has over 600 full-time journalists, 750 freelancers, and 20 local bureaus, RFE/RL is one of the most comprehensive news operations in the world.​

History
The origin of RFE/RL was established in the beginning of the Cold War. Many Russian political leaders have proved the importance of RFE/RL in finishing the Cold War. At first, RFE and RL were independent of each other. RFE was established in 1950, broadcasting to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. RL was established in 1953, broadcasting to the Soviet Union. They were both originally funded by the CIA and some private donations. The broadcasts during the first several years of the Cold War provided people (both Communists and non-Communists) news and music, including content about religion, science, sports, and even some literature that were banned locally. Even though Communism collapsed in Russia, many political leaders in East Europe and Russia thought that RFE/RL was necessary in the transition period to democracy and shouldn’t be dismissed. Therefore, RFE/RL started to build up local services and hire local reporters from 1989. When Communist countries became democratic, RFE/RL started to close down services at places such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria. In 2002, RFE/RL resumed broadcasting in Afghanistan. In 2010, RFE/RL began broadcasting to the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2019, RFE/RL resumed broadcasting to Romania and Bulgaria because people have been worrying about the fact that democracy was diminishing in those countries.

The US State Department raised the idea in August 1946 of broadcasting American radio in Russia from Germany instead of from The Voice of America. Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) is a German language radio station for all Soviet-occupied regions in Germany, and it started broadcasting in 1946, as a successful model for Radio Free Europe in Munich. (Cummings 5). The very beginning of RFE was started in 1947-1948 at the time when Soviet Union was trying to dominate Eastern Europe with the Berlin airlift. It was the Soviet Union Communist Party that inhibited the free flow of information. Then the US National Security Council issued programs and operations by the CIA to create new radio stations that were not in the control of the Soviet Union. The primary promotor of this program George Kennan proposed a program called “liberation committees,” and its purpose was:

"To encourage the formation of a public American organization which will sponsor selected political refugee committees so that they may

a. Act as foci of national hope and revive a sense of purpose among political refugees from the Soviet World;

b. Provide an inspiration for continuing popular resistance within the countries of the Soviet World; and

c. Serve as a potential nucleus for all-out liberation movements in the event of war."

The National Committee for Free Europe was established and founded to help the non-Communist leaders who fled to the United States. The first meeting of the National Committee for Free Europe took place in May 1949.

List of Languages
Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Chechen, Crimean Tatar, Dari, English, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uzbek; reporting in Hungarian will resume in summer 2020.

Funding
This organization was funded by The United States Congress through the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). https://www.usagm.gov/

Under IRS rules, RFE/RL is a private, nonprofit corporation. Chartered in Delaware, it receives federal grants as a private grantee. RFE/RL maintains a corporate office in Washington, D.C. managed by President and CEO Jamie Fly.

Safety of Reporters
In countries such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Belarus, reporters’ safety is at risk. Journalists often receive physical violence such as harassment and threats. In countries such as Iran and Crimea, authorities try to ban its broadcasts and websites. Warfares in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan also lead to instability of the broadcasts. Reporters in Iran might even put their family members at risk. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian Service correspondent, was murdered in 1978 in London by Bulgarian spies. RFE/RL’s headquarter in Germany was also bombed by Romanian Security services that injured six staff members.

Goals, Morals, and Impacts
The organization is built for an important aspect of democracy -- a well informed citizenry. The free flow of international information would help more regions to develop and be more stable. RFE/RL attracts audiences with broadcasts, television, networks, and social media platforms. Current Time TV is a channel that is presenting Russian news 24/7 on TV and networks, which collaborate with Voice of America. Every week it is broadcasting about 1500 hours across 11 different time zones.

C.D. Jackson, president of the National Committee for a Free Europe, the organization that sponsored RFE, reassured his audience that RFE never want to promote any particular economic system, which is a policy that RFE insists since the Cold War.

"Radio Free Europe, along with its sister organization, Radio Liberty, stood as the most visible institution of official American anticommunism, and were argurably the most successful Cold War vehicles established by the American government."

"Only with RFE/RL, however, did a country establish broadcast services whose purpose was to change the form of government in foreign nations by airing news not about the country from which the broadcasts originated but about the countries that were the broadcasts targets."

Controversy arose because RFE/RL has been viewed differently in different countries. Some view these radio stations as source of information and liberation, while others view them as “a tool of imperialism and hegemony” such as in the case of Rwanda Genocide.