Yesterday’s report that the US government has been funding outlets such as Politico, the Associated Press, the BBC, and others raised more questions than it answered – though the obvious implication is that the US government has effectively been propping up regime-friendly media, which then peddles regime-friendly coverage – and spent years attacking independent outlets, and many unlucky ones who have since been starved out of business.
And while funding for Politico and others has come from all over the federal government – WikiLeaks, citing a RSF report, highlighted that USAID was funding over 6,200 journalists across 707 media outlets and 279 “media” NGOs, which includes 90% of the reportage out of Ukraine.
According to RSF, the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid – roughly $268 million earmarked to fund “independent media and the free flow of information,” has ‘thrown journalism around the world into chaos.’
Note the recurring use of the term ‘independent media.’
USAID was funding over 6,200 journalists across 707 media outlets and 279 "media" NGOs, including nine out of ten media outlets in Ukraine.https://t.co/tLUoBT2GfNhttps://t.co/Siq2RJOXQf pic.twitter.com/LyaUFuq3He
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 6, 2025
Of course, the RSF report, and another from the Columbia Journalism Review are sounding the alarm over the ‘silencing of independent media’ around the world.
The critical context they omit, however, is that USAID – despite the best of intentions when it was formed, has been corrupted into a deep-state slush-fund.
