The European Union or individual EU member states should fund Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe (RFE) and other media outlets that have lost their US funding, an adviser to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda says.
“If the European Union or individual countries in the region see that these media outlets are necessary to get the word out to countries that are censored, I think we should be talking about possibly funding those media outlets rather than sitting back and demanding that somebody else do it for us,” Frederikas Jansonas told the radio Žinių Radijas on Tuesday.
He was speaking after the Trump administration suspended the operation of Voice of America and several other US-funded media outlets on Saturday.
“All of us who belong to the older generation, we were growing up listening to or heard our parents listening to the radio and hearing ‘this is Voice of America from Washington’, and in that sense we certainly have this sentimental thing and understanding of the impact that this can and has had on the life of Lithuania,” he said.
Over the weekend, hundreds of reporters and other staff at VOA, Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe (RFE) and other media outlets received emails telling them that they would be banned from their offices and that they would have to surrender their press passes, office phones, and other equipment.
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