It's not covert, but it's quite literally a propaganda machine.
The reason Radio Free Europe/Asia were founded was to broadcast the benefits of 'freedom' into communist-governed areas. You might think that we're qualitatively the good guys, and I'm all for freedom, but that's definitionally 'propaganda'.
The question at issue here is whether RFE/RFA's reporting is known to be reputable. As far as I can tell, it is. (Funding a reputable journalistic organization is entirely consistent with "broadcasting the benefits of freedom", and doing the opposite would probably undermine those goals.)
The person who started this thread is trying to discount an RFA report solely because of the source. That seems unwarranted.
Is the allegation in this case that RFA is misreporting this story in order to avoid undercutting US geopolitical interests? It seems like the goalposts are moving in a way that still doesn't support the implied accusation.
* The linked story is way out over it's skis, pulling together partial opinions from a bunch of sources to make a definitive claim that is not really supported. I doubt the Party themselves have even reached a firm decision on the matter yet.
* The (minor!) Radio Free Asia link is a random person they were interviewing, who gave an opinion. It's not RFA's official opinion on the matter, but I'll opine that they pick and choose who they have on based on US interests, that's their charter and raison d'etre.
Unfortunately, this particular report does not seem to be reputable, based on the way unsubstantiated rumour and uncredible source were solely used to draw an eye-catching title.
I don't disagree that it was founded to try to convince the world that America is awesome. But "propaganda" is an overused term, and in this case, far too broad a brush.
People who listen to RFA know this. People who don't only see that it's run by a U.S. government agency and think it's the equivalent of Soviet shortwave days.
Not everything the government does is evil. Not everything the government publishes is propaganda.
Everything's propaganda. Even "objective" facts presented with the omission of other "objective" facts is propaganda. Look at something you think isn't propaganda. That's propaganda for your particular brand of sensibility about what is or isn't propaganda.
Propaganda is inescapable, like politics. It's all about whose you like the most at the present moment or which kind you're epistemically indoctrinated into. :3 (For me, I like scientific empiricism, but that position, too, is just a philosophical/political/propagandist leaning, frontloaded with all the assumptions and priors that go along with it. And I also think it's the best one, and I think it's dumb to disagree.)
"Propaganda" is an underused term. The propaganda industry renamed itself as the "public relations" industry (Bernays quite literally coined the term.) After that "propaganda" meant "public relations that I disapprove of i.e. communists."
The overused term is "unbiased" which doesn't mean anything. The closest meaningful word to it is "disinterested" which means that the person conveying the information doesn't particularly care about it.
The reason Radio Free Europe/Asia were founded was to broadcast the benefits of 'freedom' into communist-governed areas. You might think that we're qualitatively the good guys, and I'm all for freedom, but that's definitionally 'propaganda'.