> "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.

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).

NYTimes seems to disagree:

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...

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.

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-...

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.

They never "simply" did this. They often did this, when the truth was good news for them, but so does RT.

The "Truth" (or facts presented in a very specific way) is a incredibly effective form of propaganda. You think foreign governments like Chin haven't been using the storming of the United States Capitol as a means to demonstrate the US's weakness or incompetence?

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.

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?

I said no such thing. You should not make assumptions about other people.

Of course it would not be officially part of the CIA... that would be idiotic.

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.

You're citing a news article from 1977 as your counterpoint?

RFA is still doing the same thing today. Technology has changed but their mission has not.

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.

This simply isn't true. These are two different organizations.

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'.

The question at issue here is whether RFE/RFA's reporting is known to be reputable. As far as I can tell, it is. (Funding a reputable journalistic organization is entirely consistent with "broadcasting the benefits of freedom", and doing the opposite would probably undermine those goals.)

The person who started this thread is trying to discount an RFA report solely because of the source. That seems unwarranted.

RFE/RFA's reporting will never, ever, ever undercut US geopolitical interests.

Is the allegation in this case that RFA is misreporting this story in order to avoid undercutting US geopolitical interests? It seems like the goalposts are moving in a way that still doesn't support the implied accusation.

In this particular case, IMO, 2 things are true:

* The linked story is way out over it's skis, pulling together partial opinions from a bunch of sources to make a definitive claim that is not really supported. I doubt the Party themselves have even reached a firm decision on the matter yet.

* The (minor!) Radio Free Asia link is a random person they were interviewing, who gave an opinion. It's not RFA's official opinion on the matter, but I'll opine that they pick and choose who they have on based on US interests, that's their charter and raison d'etre.

Unfortunately, this particular report does not seem to be reputable, based on the way unsubstantiated rumour and uncredible source were solely used to draw an eye-catching title.

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.

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.)

"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.

Entirely possible, probably likely, that it's somewhere in the center. Not all propaganda and not all unbiased

So basically the US version of RT?

That's Voice of America, VOA

How about the weapons of mass destruction?

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.