Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), operating under a grant from the BBG, broadcasts uncensored news and information in 28 languages to countries where a free press is either banned by the government or not fully established. RFE/RL’s broadcasts are heard across 11 time zones each week, by nearly 18 million listeners in 21 countries including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia. RFE/RL produces more than 1,000 hours of content each week from its broadcast headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic and its 19 regional bureaus.

In order to reach people in some of the most closed societies on earth, RFE/RL is using the latest technologies to deliver the news – the Internet, SMS text messaging, satellite radio, Facebook, and Twitter. With more than 60 years of surrogate broadcasting experience, RFE/RL continues to bring audiences the rich, immediate, and interactive content they seek.

2009 Highlights

• Millions of Iranians voted in a hotly disputed presidential election in June. Post-election protests have grown into the most serious challenge to Iran’s theocratic rulers in the past 30 years. Despite the government’s intense efforts to jam broadcasts and block access to its website, RFE/RL’s Radio Farda was a vital source of up-to-the-minute, independent news for Iranians about the protests and government crackdown. Media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, and Sky News turned to RFE/RL’s Iran experts for insight into the protest movement.

• Just days before Afghanistan’s August presidential election, RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan – the country’s most popular news source – hosted the first live presidential debate in Afghan history. The debate capped Radio Free Afghanistan’s unique and comprehensive reporting on the election campaign during which it organized roundtables and interviews with all 41 candidates.

• Despite a ban on local rebroadcasting, the Azerbaijani Service used its website and innovative marketing strategies to deliver hard-hitting news. Reporters in Baku obtained video clips of election fraud and reported on eyewitness accounts of fraud during the controversial March referendum that abolished presidential term limits. The service’s coverage earned it the 2009 Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) Media Excellence Award for “Best Radio Coverage of a Single News Event.”

• In Russia, RFE/RL continued to serve as a vital resource for audiences seeking news not shaped by the Kremlin. Throughout the year, RFE/RL’s Russian Service provided balanced news and analysis on the relations between President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and covered the epidemic of kidnappings and killings in Chechnya.

• In November, RFE/RL launched “Echo of the Caucasus,” a daily hour-long news program in Russian to the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It also features a Russian-language website with news, photos, audio, and video.

In late 2009, RFE/RL prepared for the January 2010 launch of Pashto-language programming to Pakistan and the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The new station – called Radio Mashaal (Torch) offers an alternative to the growing number of Islamic extremist radio stations in the region.

• In February, RFE/RL aired its first program from a new, state-of-the-art broadcast headquarters in Prague. The five-story, 236,000 square-foot center features multimedia recording studios, interlinking offices, and a modern newsroom.

• The number of visits and page views on RFE/RL’s Internet websites nearly doubled in 2009, thanks to the full implementation of a new Web content management system that offers visitors more interactivity, more video and graphic content, and more user-generated content. RFE/RL also expanded into social networking, with Radio Farda’s Farsi-language fan page becoming one of Facebook’s most popular Iran-related pages.

 

Awards

• The updated website of RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service won an Online News Association (ONA) award in November for excellence in online journalism. Radio Free Afghanistan’s redesigned website had a 400 percent increase in page views, with most of its visits coming from the region – Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

• In April, the Moldova Service used radio, video, and photos to cover the so-called “Twitter Revolution,” when thousands of young demonstrators clashed with police and ransacked government buildings to protest the Communist Party’s victory in national elections. Three Chisinau-based correspondents received the Eurasia Foundation’s Journalism Prize for providing the most “balanced” and “comprehensive” coverage of the elections.

• Azerbaijani Service reporter Malahat Nasibova received the Rafto Prize for her reporting on human rights violations and abuses of power in her native province of Nakhichevan.

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