November 2: Connecting Strategy to Impact: The Need for Radio Free Asia, with Bay Fang
International broadcasting has been a key component of America's public diplomacy activities since World War II. Join us for our November First Monday Forum at which we will hear from the President and CEO of Radio Free Asia. The program will take place at noon on November 2 at GWU's Lindner Family Commons at the Elliott School (1957 E Street, NW, Room 602, Washington, D.C. 20052). For those who RSVP and arrive before 11:40 a.m., a light lunch will be provided. The event is co-sponsored the GWU Elliott School of International Affairs, the GW Institute for Public Diplomacy & Global Communication, and the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy.
- To register to attend in-person, click here.
- To register for the Forum via Zoom, click here.
As President and CEO, Bay Fang provides Radio Free Asia with leadership, vision, and mission-based strategic and operational direction. She first came to RFA as Managing Director for East Asia, overseeing the management and editorial content of RFA’s five East Asian language services. She went on to become RFA’s Executive Editor, supervising coverage across all of Asia.
She began her 20-year career in journalism as the Beijing Bureau Chief for US News and World Report, where she won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for her story “China’s Stolen Wives.” She went on to cover the wars in Afghanistan (2001-2002) and Iraq (2003-2004) for US News, and then became the Diplomatic Correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Before coming to RFA, she also served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, overseeing public diplomacy and public affairs for Europe and Eurasia.
Ms. Fang earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and was a visiting fellow at Oxford University and a Fulbright scholar in Hong Kong. She trained as a French chef at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and holds a brown belt in kung fu.
Radio Free Asia operates under a Congressional mandate to deliver uncensored, domestic news and information to China, Tibet, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma, among other places in Asia with poor media environments and few, if any, free speech protections. All broadcasts are solely in local languages and dialects, which include Mandarin, Tibetan, Cantonese, Uyghur, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, Burmese, and Korean.
RFA adheres to the highest journalistic standards of objectivity, accuracy, and fairness, as defined in the code of ethics for its reporters and editors. In countries and regions with little or no access to accurate and timely journalism, as well as alternative opinions and perspectives, RFA’s nine language services fill a crucial gap. RFA aims to retain the greatest confidence among its audiences and to serve as a model on which others may shape their own emerging journalistic traditions.
RFA is a private, nonprofit corporation, funded by the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent federal government agency that oversees all U.S. civilian international media. In addition to providing oversight, the USAGM works with RFA to ensure the professional independence and integrity of its journalism.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” — Article 19, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights