At the end of 2024, global progress on media freedom wasn’t imminent—after nearly 15 years of decline, there were still too few bright spots—but it was in sight. Now, facing a loss of the resources from the US government on the issue, a resurgence of press freedom around the world might remain out of reach for years to come.
US-taxpayer-funded support for media freedom and development around the world likely peaked last year. Counting all of the resources spent by US AID, the State Department, and the National Endowment for Democracy, at the time that the funding freeze was put in place the US was spending $150 – $200 million annually, easily a third of all official development assistance to the media sector globally. Also imperiled, and equally important, is the authority and diplomatic influence the US was bringing to the cause.
Yet US support for media freedom, contrary to what its critics might say, was not the driving force for an astroturf movement. With or without US backing, scrappy journalists have used whatever technology they can find—radio transmitters, fax machines, and (more recently) smart phones—to stubbornly carry out their profession in service to basic ideals of transparency. The self-sacrificing commitment of journalists earning laughable wages under threat of imprisonment, or worse, is what inspires the solidarity of the press freedom movement.
As such, the movement will endure, and could eventually emerge stronger, but a US retreat from the cause will have at least three major consequences in the coming years.
Citizens in the most repressive countries will have less access to news and reliable information
The US directed more of its support to closed autocracies than any other government funder. The already devastating impact of the funding freeze on journalism in Myanmar is a sign of what’s to come. Media outlets operating fully or partly from exile from countries such as China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, Belarus, and Afghanistan will bear the brunt. Some of these outlets will not survive. Some will survive by serving diaspora audiences, diverting them from the audiences back home. The world will be less informed about what is happening in those countries, and many citizens will become hostage to government propaganda.
Exile media outlets, with US support, have also been innovating, including by making more creative use of social media platforms and, in some cases, building their own apps with integrated technologies to circumvent the censors back home. Exile media outlets were coalescing around new hubs and networks that allowed them to learn from one another about how to safely work with in-country contributors and how to diversify their income. The direct support to media outlets serving repressive environments is essential, of course, but the additional layers of assistance that had been driving its evolution were a source of renewed hope in the inexorability of independent journalism.
Independent media will shrink in the countries facing Russian aggression and hostility
US support for journalism was also prominent in the countries facing the most coercive pressure from Russia.
In Ukraine, Russia’s invasion sparked a flight to quality, with audiences shifting to independent online outlets such as Ukrainska Pravda, public TV broadcaster Suspilne, and regional radio broadcasters. But audiences do not translate into revenue during the war; advertising revenue has plummeted while newsroom costs have rocketed. US support has been essential for Ukrainian journalists to keep citizens informed and document Russian war crimes. About 60 percent of the Ukrainian news professionals recently surveyed said that the US funding freeze would have a “catastrophic” impact on their newsrooms.
Amid much less attention, the loss of US funding has also been devastating to many media outlets in Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, and the Western Balkans. Across those countries, Russian-aligned actors are exerting immense pressure in the information environment: sometimes operating large-scale outlets, flooding the digital environment with toxic content, or finding ways to weaponize advertising as a tool of soft censorship. But commonly across these contexts, international funding remains a vital source of independence.
The international networks of learning, innovation, cooperation, and coordination will recede
High-level attention and diplomatic coordination on issues of press freedom and freedom of expression are a relatively new and exciting phenomenon. Multi-lateral initiatives such as the Media Freedom Coalition, Summit for Democracy, and Freedom Online Coalition are still in their institutional infancy and have struggled to define their objectives, refine their mechanisms, and, above all, to attract leadership from a diversity of states with the capacity to lead them. These initiatives, and the meaningful momentum they were creating for democratic norms, will falter.
Investigative journalism networks such as CLIP, OCCRP, and ARIJ—by virtue of both direct loss of funding to the networks as well as the loss of funding to the news outlets that are network members—will struggle to maintain their achievements of recent years. The coordinated cross-border reporting and co-publishing agreements of these networks are essential for effectively and safely reporting on corruption. These networks have also proven to be one of the most effective means of capacity building, providing the kind of long-term, on-the-job mentoring that is required to mint an investigative journalist.
Finally, US support in recent years has also shifted towards a stronger focus on media viability or sustainability. Some of the work engaging with the systemic challenges to media viability courted controversy within the US, and some grant-funded media outlets have themselves pushed back against the notion of sustainability. The shift in emphasis, however, towards audience data and entrepreneurial news business models has overall had a positive effect on the field. Amid the shortage of funding to come, the pressure to demonstrate sustainability will be even greater, while the international cooperation needed to truly promote sustainability might not.
What is to be done?
The funding gap left by the US will not be filled by US philanthropy or European donors. Where new funding does become available, it should seek to fill some of the most pressing safety and operational needs of journalists working in closed autocracies and on the frontlines of authoritarian aggression, where other forms of support are exceedingly scarce.
Otherwise, doing more with less will be essential. Even before this crisis, concerns were growing about the amount of international assistance reaching local actors on the frontlines. By account of one OECD study, only eight percent reaches local organizations. Localizing assistance brings its own set of challenges, but it will be an important part of the response.
Finally, the collapse of US support in this field should provide an incentive to jettison the lingering blueprint models of media development. International media development has made great progress in this direction, not least of all through the OECD’s recent principles for media support. We must find a way to sustain the mutual learning and innovation that has been fostered across borders and promote multi-stakeholder coalitions that can build alliances between government actors, the private sector, publishers, and civil society.
We can mourn the opportunity that we have lost, but we must resolve to ensure that the next opportunity is not.
Nicholas Benequista is a Senior Director for the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy.
