NEW YORK – “I have been a journalist for 20 years. The media industry has evolved so much. We are driven by subscription revenues and audience numbers. But Radio Free Asia (RFA) represents a true version of impactful journalism because you're holding governments to account,” said Tenzin Pema, director of RFA’s Tibetan Service, reflecting on her journey as a journalist.
Pema is a Tibetan born in exile. She joined RFA in 2023 to tell the untold stories of Tibetans living under oppressive Chinese rule.
Last year, Pema and her team broke the story of the Dege protests, where hundreds of people demonstrated against a planned mega-dam on the Drichu River that threatened to submerge at least six ancient monasteries and displace two villages. The outlet revealed how Chinese authorities responded by arresting hundreds of protesters, many of whom were reportedly beaten and interrogated.
“Our sources told us that the release of the protesters was because of the reporting we did, which drew international attention,” she said, recounting the episode as one of her most treasured memories as a journalist at RFA.
“Ever since we did our reporting, we’ve seen governments issue statements. We saw rights groups call for the Chinese government to release these prisoners,” she added. “It really is about impact.”
Based in Washington, D.C., Pema and her team report on Tibet, where the Chinese government detains protesters, erases Tibetan language and culture and allows no independent media presence beyond state-controlled outlets.
RFA is a U.S.-funded, non-profit media agency dedicated to covering regions with limited press freedom. For Tibet and many other regions in Asia under authoritarian rule, RFA has long been a vital source of information — but that is now at risk.
On March 14, the Trump administration issued an executive order to scale back funding for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the parent agency of Radio Free Asia (RFA).
The following day, RFA received a termination letter from USAGM Senior Advisor Kari Lake, stating that the organization no longer served the agency's priorities and ordering it to shut down operations and return any unused funds.
As a result, USAGM withheld approximately $34 million in congressionally approved funding that was intended to sustain RFA through the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025.
Waves of furloughs and layoffs hit the staff after Trump's funding cut. First, RFA put 75% of its 391 U.S.-based employees on unpaid leave and terminated most of its overseas contractors.
On May 9, RFA announced it would cease publishing new content in four of its language services: Tibetan, Burmese, Uyghur and Lao.
“After May 9, RFA will exist in name only,” RFA’s Chief Operating Officer, Kevin W. Fleming, attested in the petition.
RFA language services have been critical sources of independent reporting on China — particularly on Tibetan, Uyghur and Hong Kong issues — where journalists, their sources and their families are harassed, arrested and detained.
For Pema, the cut in funding has meant the journalism she believed in may not be able to continue.
“For three decades, the reporting RFA Tibetan did was critical to inform audiences inside Tibet about what is happening both outside in the world, and inside Tibet. They are not privy to truthful, unbiased, uncensored information,” Pema said.
RFA was created under the U.S. International Broadcasting Act of 1994 with the stated mission of promoting democratic values and human rights. It was proposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, aimed to challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s control over information and serve as a tool for the United States to strengthen its soft power.
Since then, the RFA Uyghur service has reported extensively on the oppression of Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group living in Xinjiang, including the infamous 2017 mass crackdown that led to an estimated 1.8 million people being confined in internment camps.
Similarly, the RFA Tibetan service has covered the persecution of Tibetan religion, language, and culture, including the targeting of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama and the exiled democratic government.
“There is no press freedom in Tibet,” Pema said. “Any information available to people in China and also in Tibet is basically from state media. Every piece of information people are getting inside is censored information or propaganda that the Chinese government wants to disseminate.”
RFA language services speak to people in parts of China where the government silences them.
“We are the only source of truthful information and objective journalism to the Uyghur people and the world,” said Alim Seytoff, Director of RFA’s Uyghur Service. “Uyghur people in our homeland listen to our broadcast to find out what is happening around the world, what's happening in China and what's happening even in our homeland.”
Not just in places where freedom of speech and internet access have always been scarce. In Hong Kong, where people can still freely access the internet, since the 2019 national security legislation and the 2024 Basic Law Article 23, where journalists and dissidents can easily be charged and jailed for “sedition,” media freedom has shrunk drastically.
“The situation in Hong Kong is also very important. Since the closure of media outlets like Apple Daily and Stand News, there are hardly any media left that can hold the government accountable. Foreign media have become a rare and crucial force,” said an employee of RFA Cantonese, Mandy (pseudonym).
The environment RFA reports in is hazardous for reporters. Due to security reasons, journalists publish under pen names. “I don’t even know the Chinese name of any of my colleagues on the Mandarin team,” said Isaac Liu, an RFA Mandarin journalist.
It's not only dangerous for journalists, but for sources as well. They are risking their lives to give reporters a glimpse into their lives.
“There is punishment for people who are seen accessing news and information from outside, as well as talking to reporters,” Pema shared about her experience at the Tibetan service. “Many of them are interrogated, subjected to arbitrary detention. Oftentimes, some of these writers who post information on Chinese social media platforms have been arrested and their whereabouts remain unknown.”
The situation is difficult across different teams. After the United States officially labeled China’s actions against Uyghurs as genocide, Beijing intensified its campaign of transnational repression. In addition to targeting Uyghurs within China, authorities began detaining, disappearing, and harassing the family members of Uyghur journalists and activists living abroad.
“Many of them are still in detention and in prison, precisely because of our work here,” Seytoff recalled about the situation of the loved ones of the journalists.
He added, “It's just a way for the Chinese government to get back at us, to threaten us, to put pressure on us so that we, as the only independent voice of Uyghurs, will stop reporting on China's genocide.”
Despite the adverse environment, RFA still manages to cultivate a network in those regions.
The exiled journalists at RFA, who have previous networks in the regions, are a great asset to journalism.
The quality of coverage also wins trust. “I think the fact that they provide information reflects the trust that RFA has been able to build with these sources,” Pema said.
Pema shared that after receiving a lead, they further verify information with spatial data and satellite imagery. This verification builds trust between them and the audience.
“These sources and the relationships we've built are very sensitive and have been built over many years. That’s something that would be lost, and the world would lose a window into Tibet,” Pema said.
Although it has an English platform and the nature of a foreign news outlet, RFA’s mission is not just aimed at an international audience. Its mission is to inform local people.
“RFA plays a different role in Hong Kong — it is better able to report the news from the perspective of Hongkongers and speak directly to the local audience,” Mandy said. “Similarly, the Mandarin-language division presents news about China in a way that resonates more closely with Chinese people. This role is, in fact, very difficult to replace.”
RFA still tries to continue its coverage for as long as it can.
After the furloughs, Pema is the only full-time journalist on the Tibet team. In this short-staffed situation between March and May, RFA still covered the recent death of a Tibetan Buddhist leader, Tulku Hungkar Dorje. He fled to Vietnam to escape Chinese persecution but died in custody following his arrest by Vietnamese and Chinese authorities.
“What it highlights is transnational oppression. It highlights very clearly that China's law enforcement is beyond its borders,” Pema said.
The Chinese government has long been hardening its grip on Tibet through transnational oppression, military training in primary schools, and crackdowns on Tibetic languages.
“All of these are worrying trends, which deserve more time and resources to tell these stories well and to have the kind of specialist reporters we used to have and their sources. Unfortunately, these stories are going to be impacted.”
With RFA’s language services shutting down this month, future oppressions may go silent and unnoticed.
This could lead to an informational dark age for both locals and the U.S. government.
“At the State Department and in both the House and Senate, the reports they release rely on our reporting to hold China accountable,” Pema said. “But you cannot hold a country to account if you don't have information well in advance of these worrying trends that are emerging.”
A federal district court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from cutting off funding to RFA, allowing the outlet to continue operating while its lawsuit challenging the funding termination moves forward.
RFA’s parent agency, USAGM, was ordered to release the funding. However, according to a status report USAGM submitted to the court on May 1, it has only disbursed funds to cover operations for March and April—not the full amount appropriated for the rest of fiscal year 2025.
As court proceedings continue, the information lighthouse in Tibet and Xinjiang has gone dark for nearly a month—leaving behind a vacuum where independent reporting once stood.
But the journalists have yet to lose hope in the journalism they produce at RFA.
“Hopefully we will resume our fine reporting soon,” Seytoff shared after the Ugyhur service went dark.
“When we were younger, we said we wanted to give voice to the voiceless. As we grow older and actually enter the profession, we become a little jaded. But I really feel that this is one place where it truly is about giving a voice to the voiceless,” Pema said—still holding on to the mission that first inspired her, and to the newsroom where she can make it happen.