Attacks on public media; Delayed justice in El Salvador
Plus, the top press freedom headlines from around the world.
Hello, and welcome to The Press Freedom Report.
I’m Liam Scott, and today I’m focused on VOA, RFA, PBS, NPR (lots of acronyms), El Salvador, and more. Plus, the top press freedom headlines from around the world.
Starting on a personal note
Q&A: Tamara Bralo on Fighting to Protect Radio Free Asia’s Journalists
For the Columbia Journalism Review, I interviewed Tamara Bralo, Radio Free Asia’s head of journalist safety, about her efforts to defend RFA’s vulnerable staffers amid the Trump administration’s war on RFA and the U.S. Agency for Global Media
“It’s been incredibly long hours. It’s been incredibly draining. It’s not just empathy. It’s dealing with deeply traumatized people; it’s difficult to remain calm when you’re dealing with this much trauma from every possible angle. You have to be creative on two hours of sleep and figure out who might be able to help,” Bralo told me.
Read the full Q&A here.
What hostage takers really want — and why our response must change
For Jason Rezaian’s Press Freedom Partnership newsletter at The Washington Post, I interviewed him about hostage taking and how the U.S. response to the problem has evolved since he was released from wrongful detention in Iran nearly a decade ago.
“If a foreign correspondent is taken, that means that other news organizations are going to be wary of sending someone there. At the time of my arrest, there was a big and growing number of international journalists covering Iran. That calculation inevitably changed. It’s really another win for the hostage takers. They’re silencing their critics,” Rezaian told me.
Read the full newsletter here, and sign up for it here.
Salvadoran court convicts former military officers of 1982 journalist killings
Three former senior Salvadoran military officers were each sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday for the 1982 killings of four Dutch journalists.
Former Defense Minister Gen. José Guillermo García, 91, former treasury police director Col. Francisco Morán, 93, and former army commander Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, 85, were all convicted of murder in a speedy trial that began Tuesday morning.
The trio were found guilty of murdering Dutch journalists Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemsen in 1982. The journalists were producing a documentary about El Salvador’s civil war.
Mena lives in Virginia, where a civil lawsuit is ongoing over his role in the killings. In March, El Salvador’s Supreme Court ordered that the extradition process be started to bring him back. García and Morán are both in El Salvador.
“It’s important to fight to the utmost to get an official acknowledgement,” Jan’s brother Gert Kuiper told me earlier this year. “I want official acknowledgement of the fact that they were killed intentionally. That’s what I really want.”
More firings are coming for VOA
More than 500 of Voice of America’s contractors have already been terminated. Now, the U.S. Agency for Global Media plans to terminate most of the outlet’s remaining 800 staffers, according to The Washington Post, which obtained the firing plan.
In a June 3 letter to Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chairman James Risch, USAGM senior adviser Kari Lake detailed the about 80 positions that would be left after a reduction in force.
According to the plan, Voice of America would retain just 11 employees, plus two each for the Farsi, China and Afghan services. Before President Donald Trump’s executive order, VOA employed about 1,300 people.
The Office of Cuba Broadcasting, meanwhile, would keep 33 staffers.
The clock starts for NPR and PBS
The Trump administration on Tuesday formally launched an effort to claw back more than $1 billion in federal funds that were meant for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the agency that disburses the funds to local NPR and PBS stations around the U.S.
Now that the administration has formally asked Congress to cut the funds, lawmakers have 45 days to either approve the administration’s request or ignore it.
This anticipated move marks the latest development in the Trump administration’s campaign to defund NPR and PBS — a campaign that the broadcasters say is retaliation for their critical coverage.
“Rescission would irreparably harm communities across America who count on public media for 24/7 news, music, cultural and educational programming, and emergency alerting services,” NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement.
PBS CEO Paula Kerger had a similar message. “There’s nothing more American than PBS and we are proud to highlight real issues, individuals, and places that would otherwise be overlooked by commercial media,” she said.
I recommend you read (and watch):
This article in Deutsche Welle about the politically motivated imprisonment of RFE/RL journalist Farid Mehralizada in Azerbaijan
This story in The Guardian about attacks and threats facing journalists in Northern Ireland
Today is the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. This interview between Reporters Without Borders and Wu’er Kaixi, a former leader of the student movement, explores Beijing’s crackdown on press freedom.
Press Freedom News Wrap
United States
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez Wages a Lonely Fight for Press Freedom in Trumpland (TheWrap)
Why Are the Media So Afraid of Trump? (The Atlantic)
Fountain Hills Town Council members retaliate against local newspaper for its reporting (Arizona Republic)
Rights groups demand answers from FBI on investigation into Supreme Court leak (RSF)
Trump’s playbook to cripple “60 Minutes” and the press (The New Yorker)
Africa
Burundi: Fear persists over press freedom ahead of local elections (France 24)
Zimbabwe: A media policy without media freedom is just a media control strategy (The Zimbabwean)
Asia
Nepal: Press Council Nepal launches historic book on media history (The Himalayan)
Europe
Hungary: Foreign funding bill poses worst threat to independent media in years (Article 19)
North Macedonia: Joint Efforts under the “Journalists Matter” Campaign to Advance Media Freedom in North Macedonia (Council of Europe)
Serbia: Alarming escalation in attacks on journalists amid political crisis in Serbia (CPJ)
Serbia: Journalists in Serbia pessimistic about pledged media reform (DW)
Middle East
Yemen: Houthis abduct 4 journalists, jail another for criticizing leader, says watchdog (Arab News, CPJ)
North America
Mexico: Female politicians use meritless lawsuits to censor journalists in Mexico, lawyer says (CPJ)
Other news from press freedom world
Poynter is expanding its coverage of the Trump administration’s attacks on media freedom.
José Carlos Zamora has joined CPJ as its new Regional Director for the Americas. Zamora is the son of publisher José Rubén Zamora, who is currently imprisoned in Guatemala on politically motivated charges.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press plans to honor former USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, and others with its Freedom of the Press Awards in October.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back on Sunday.
Best,
Liam