Additional Context: Human Rights Watch, or HRW, notes that unlike news agencies supported by South Korea, who mainly broadcast into the country from outside, U.S.-backed agencies nurtured networks of sources and journalists from within the country, a system which served as the reporting backbone for quality news of on-the-ground conditions in North Korea, such as those on the food situation, labor conditions, and the prison system. With the funding cuts, journalists at these organizations lost access to critical funding that allows them to report, maintain source connections, and provides protection.

Devex Researcher Note: The Columbia Journalism review reported VOA and RFA to have gone off the air in North Korea officially following a June 2025 round of cuts. This has meant the loss of jobs for 40 people on VOA's Korean-language team, and left RFA with exclusively online coverage. Analysts report both a loss in dissemination of quality news for the North Korean people and a severe curtailment of intelligence gathering capabilities for the U.S. government.

Source: Human Rights Watch