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‘A Smaller Budget Means You Have Less Time to Work in the Field, Less Time for Everything’: US Foreign Aid Funding Cuts One Year Later

Michele Barbero, Rawan Damen

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2026)

"In January last year, US President Donald Trump abruptly froze almost all foreign aid provided by the US Agency for International Development and the State Department, including that earmarked for independent media around the world. He then proceeded to slash more than 80% of USAID programs and to ... cut some $60 billion in overall development assistance. The move came as a huge shock — and a devastating blow — for many investigative news outlets, particularly in the Global South, which suddenly found themselves grappling with huge holes in their budgets. GIJN sat down with Rawan Damen, director general of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism(ARIJ), a nonprofit organization based in Jordan that focuses on cross-border collaboration and on empowering journalists in the Middle East, to find out how they are coping one year later. [...] "One year ago, we lost 25% of our annual budget overnight. We worked with the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Projects focused, for example, on the environment, fact-checking, diversity, and gender equality. It was the first time ever in our “ecosystem” that contracts that had been signed, with the work already started, were terminated without being honored. For us, it was a big shock, but other organizations, like some Russian and Iranian exile media, lost 100% of their annual budget that day. Nobody was able to help us — or others — because it was a global funding crisis affecting civil society, human rights defenders, and independent media around the whole world. During 2025, there was a “snowball effect” with less funding coming from Europe, too, as more resources were allocated to defense amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine and souring relations between Europe and the US. GIJN: How did these cuts aff ect your day-to-day operations? RD: We managed not to lay people off , but many of our partners and friends had to do that immediately, they had no choice. In our case, because we are a small organization of 30 full-timers and our funding is diversified, we managed to move people from one project to another, although that meant a learning process and adapting to new jobs. But we had, of course, to cut activities and do things in a much cheaper way. This affected our production from a quantitative standpoint, we can’t deny it. Our work typically involves journalists, but also a fact checker, a lawyer, a designer, and a developer, and we had to cut on all levels. The number of investigations we can work on is reduced, but we try our best to preserve quality and do good stories. But when you have a smaller budget, it means that you have less time to work in the field, less time for everything." more

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Funding the Future of Local News: Lessons for the UK and beyond from journalism funds around the world
Deep Insights

Lucas Batt, Rhiannon Davies

Greater Community Media; Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) (2026), 124 pp.

"In this report we have documented ten case studies of visionary journalism support funds that we can learn from, drawing out insights and experiences from interviews with the people behind these funds. As we ourselves have been founders and leaders of pioneering local news organisations in the UK, ... more

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Journalism and Media Funding in Europe

Brussels: Philea - Philanthropy Europe Association; Journalism Funders Forum (2026)

"Based on a sample of 36 philanthropic organisations from 12 countries, the report shows that while funding for the field remains relatively limited, it is diverse, evolving and increasingly shaped by concerns around democracy, misinformation and the long-term sustainability of independent journalis ... more

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The Impact of Ending U.S. International Media Assistance

Daniel Sabet, Susan Abbott

Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2026), 45 pp.

"A free press is indispensable to democracy and accountability. Independent media delivers fact-based information to policymakers and voters alike, provides a forum to debate public policy, offers a tool to identify corruption and abuses, furnishes a means to hold political leaders to account, and c ... reates an avenue for those out of power to peacefully express themselves. In recognition of its importance, the United States firmly supported independent journalism around the globe from the aftermath of World War II until 2025. This assistance came to an abrupt halt in early 2025 immediately following the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president. The termination of U.S. assistance to hundreds of media organizations, independent outlets, journalists, and civil society organizations came at a particularly hard time for independent media. The sector already faced an existential crisis in many parts of the world in the face of rapid technological change, declining revenues, and shrinking political space. This paper draws on 68 interviews and a global survey of 177 media outlets and media support organizations to chart the financial, sectoral, and political impacts of terminating most U.S. support for independent media. We find the following: The sudden, ill-planned termination of U.S. governmental support caused harm and waste. Depending on the estimate and measurement, prior to the Trump administration, the United States was providing between $135 million and $248 million per year in foreign assistance support for independent media. The termination of almost all awards and payments, including payments for work already completed, was done shockingly fast. It precluded a thoughtful closedown, deprived implementing partners of payments due to them, left many without jobs, and invited costly and lengthy litigation. Unable to pay their bills, the U.S. government’s main media implementing partners fired hundreds of workers and closed offices as their staff were doxed and harassed based on false allegations. The cuts have had wide negative effects. U.S. support not only sustained media organizations but also sought to improve the political and enabling environment for media, strengthen information integrity and resilience, protect the safety and security of journalists, improve the quality of journalism, increase the market viability of media operations, and ensure the reach of independent journalism to underserved areas and populations. The aid cuts have undermined all of these goals. For example, U.S. funds had been used to support a freedom of information act in Zambia, promote information integrity in the Philippines, provide legal support to journalists in the Republic of Georgia threatened by frivolous lawsuits, train and support journalists to conduct investigative journalism in Eastern Europe, improve media business models in Serbia, and strengthen community radio stations in Mozambique. The termination of aid stopped all of these endeavors." (Summarys, page 1) more

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The State of Media Development 2026: Funding, local ownership and adaptation in international media development
New

Ines Drefs, Rose Kimani, Dennis Reineck, Martin Scott

Bonn: Deutsche Welle DW Akademie (2026), 85 pp.

"With resources drying up, not least because the U.S. administration has pulled the plug on international development funding, a rise in authoritarianism and another large-scale tech reset looming with AI, media development organizations are struggling to meet the challenges. According to data colle ... more

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Journalism Funds: Building Sustainable Infrastructure for Healthy Information Ecosystems. Why and How the International Fund for Public Interest Media Supports Journalism Funds
New

Pierrick Judeaux, Bridie Rollins, Maha Taki, Jessica White, Sameer Padania

International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM) (2026), 24 pp.

"This position paper presents the International Fund for Public Interest Media’s vision for journalism funds as a promising structural and sustainable solution for financing independent journalism at scale. It draws on our experience as a multilateral pooled fund, as well as our work funding, advi ... more

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Buying time, not markets: The limits of donor funding in Hungary’s captured media system

Marius Dragomir, Robert Nemeth

Journalism (2026), 20 pp.

"Independent journalism faces converging pressures from media capture, volatile donor priorities, and platform-driven markets accelerated by generative AI. This article presents 5 years (2020–2025) of first-hand evidence from a donor-funded program to support journalism in Hungary that combined co ... more

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Targeted: How cuts to US foreign aid threaten freedom of expression and its defenders worldwide

London: Article 19 (2026), 112 pp.

"Between January and April 2025, the United States government implemented massive and immediate cuts to foreign aid spending. Our new report Targeted explores the global impact of those cuts on freedom of expression and the people working to defend it. The cuts have weakened civil society’s capac ... more

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Meeting the Revenue Challenge: Philanthropy's Role in Local News Growth

Mark Fuerst, Caroline Porter, Feather Houstoun

Philadelphia, PA: Wyncote Foundation (2026), 32 pp.

"Starting in February 2025, we set out to identify and examine success stories among local news groups, where success was sustainability in business operations, even if that term has a range of interpretations. We reasoned that the experiences of these successful organizations might carry predictive ... more

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USA: Trump's foreign aid freeze throws journalism around the world into chaos

Reporters Without Borders, February 6 (2025)

"President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including over $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounces this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, an ... more

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The Economic Imperative of Investing in Public Interest Media

High-Level Panel on Public Interest Media

Forum on Information & Democracy (2025), 20 pp.

"Halting the decline of public interest media requires systematically recognizing, measuring, and rewarding the true value of public interest media to national and global economies and enabling governments to more effectively guide both public and private innovation. As we have argued, too much of t ... more

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The Sustainability Imperative in Media Development: A Critical Analysis of a Self-Serving Myth

Michel Leroy

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2025), xxiv, 396 pp.

"This book critically examines how the media assistance and broader "development" sectors have appropriated the catch-all concept of sustainability, originally rooted in economic and environmental fields, to suit their agendas. Analysing 289 project evaluations conducted globally between 1999 and 20 ... more

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Media Assistance: Mind the Gap! A critical review of common practices and strategies. Presentations

Dortmund: Erich-Brost-Institut; Forum Medien und Entwicklung (fome) (2025), 202 slides

"This is a compilation of the presentations at the fome conference on "Media Assistance: Mind the Gap!" from September 30 – October 1, 2024, in Dortmund." (commbox)

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We just lost our best chance in a generation to expand media freedom

Nicholas Benequista

Center for News, Technology & Innovation, February 27 (2025)

"A US retreat from international media assistance will set back the global movement for media freedom by years. The gap left behind will not be easy to fill. The movement, however, can be sustained by fortifying its roots. In time, the movement could emerge stronger." (Introduction)

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Guía de ayudas a medios y publicidad institucional para el Tercer Sector de la Comunicación

Guadalupe Aguado-Guadalupe

Salamanca: Comunicación Social Ediciones y Publicaciones (2025), 68 pp.

"La presente guía expone el funcionamiento de las ayudas a medios de comunicación y la publicidad institucional, destacando su relevancia como posibles fuentes clave de financiación para medios del Tercer Sector y aquellos que se autodefinen como independientes. Se anal ... more

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The USAID Crisis and Funding the Future of Independent Media

Rowan Philp

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), February 17 (2025)

"Independent nonprofit media around the globe suddenly find themselves at the center of a perfect storm of at least four new existential threats. The sudden hold on USAID foreign assistance funding by the US Trump administration has frozen an estimated $268 million in agreed grants for independent ... media and the free flow of information in more than 30 countries, including several under repressive regimes — and much more lost for the future — throwing much of the nonprofit watchdog sector into crisis, and potentially leaving numerous reporters, contractors, and accountability projects without pay in the weeks ahead. This is in addition to devastating cuts to the agency’s public health and humanitarian programs around the world. Despite ongoing confusion and many legal challenges, several media grantees and experts told GIJN they regard this important funding as dead. The ransacking of USAID systems by unaccountable private sector agents poses an urgent data security threat to journalists, according to development experts. They have warned that contact details of thousands of human rights defenders, media support actors, and journalists involved in US-funded projects in the past decades, as well as information on what they do and how they work, has fallen into hostile hands. The USAID freeze and accompanying US administration social media attacks on officials and beneficiaries has fueled new threats and proposed criminal investigations by enemies of independent media in repressive nations. It has also amplified public smears against courageous networks holding bad actors accountable in the public interest. The freeze further disrupts an already fractured sustainability environment in which some funders have slowly exited the sector, and in which policy changes at major social media and tech companies have suppressed distribution, promoted misinformation, and enabled harassment of independent media and its sources. The risk of self-censorship to lure future funding is yet another allied threat in this bully landscape. Some of the gravest immediate threats are being faced by exiled outlets and independent media in places such as Ukraine, Cameroon, and throughout Central America. For example, Ukraine’s Slidstvo.info, an award-winning independent investigative agency, lost 80% of its funding in a single day in January, as its two respected intermediary funders reportedly confessed their own shock, and reluctantly but firmly warned the organization to immediately halt operations on the USAID money they disburse — including any use of grant money already in the outlet’s account." (Introduction) more

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End Term evaluation of the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) programme support 2018-2024. Final report

Greg Moran, Marko Gideon

Sundbyberg: Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) (2025), x, 59, 28 pp.

"The Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) was established in 1995 as a self-regulatory body to oversee and promote media ethics and resolve complaints over media practice. MCT’s activities have since expanded to include training and advocacy on laws, policies, and protecting key rights for the media. S ... more

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The Critical Role Support Organizations Can Play in Maturing the Local News Field

Anika Anand, Darryl Holliday

Democracy Fund; Commoner Company (2025), 16 pp.

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20 Years of Networking for Independent Media Worldwide

Forum Media and Development (fome) (2025), 31 pp.

"Twenty years ago, representatives from a handful of organisations involved in media development cooperation established the Forum Media and Development (fome). Some could draw on nearly 40 years of experience, some were newbies in the field of media development assistance. However, it was only thre ... e years earlier that all these actors had met for the first time to share information about their specific work and common challenges. After a few meetings and a jointly organised conference — known today as fome symposium — the founding members decided to collaborate more closely to sustain this exchange and their commitment to shared goals. Meanwhile, 31 organisations and institutions from Germany and Switzerland have been forming a stable network for years. Instruments and focal points have evolved over the past 20 years; the shared goals and, consequently, the ongoing tasks have remained consistent for fome members: learning from one another and from partners; coordination of joint action and collaboration; promotion of media support within development cooperation. In fact, media development has gained a significantly stronger presence within German development assistance over the last decades. In the early years of fome's existence, media was one of several cross-cutting themes, for which four hours of the responsible staff member's time were allocated in the governmental administration. Currently, two staff members are responsible for media assistance within the BMZ — the German Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation. A fixed title has been established in the budget plan since 2015: ’Promotion of media, access to information, and freedom of expression in partner countries’. Over the years, this amount increased to €30 million. However, the sum was not increased in the fourth year, which ultimately signifies a slight decline, as personnel and material costs have risen during the same period. The challenges in media assistance, however, increased over these 20 years. Digital media caused the breakdown of traditional funding business models, and especially local communication spaces are becoming more vulnerable.Never before have so many journalists faced such severe threats — being murdered in war zones, imprisoned by authoritarian regimes, and subjected to hate speech and open threats on social media. Digital media serve as tools of hybrid warfare, and the ways in which propaganda and misinformation influence democratic elections and societal debates have increased. AI will further boost the potential of deepfakes. Therefore, combating disinformation remains a key focus of German media support. However, fighting disinformation also involves backing credible media organisations and making independent journalists as resilient as possible against various forms of attack. It also involves identifying the most effective ways of publishing and accessing information, as well as exploring the potential of AI in journalists' professional environments. The most effective approaches to achieve this have been the subject of learning and discussion in the fome network during the last 20 years, and they will be explored within the fome network over the next 20 years. Some of the member organisations featured in this brochure highlight one of their projects, which they implement with media professionals in the so-called Global South. The individual articles also demonstrate the diversity of the member organisations and their various areas of activity across different regions of the world." (Introduction by Sofie Jannusch) more

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The State of Media Development: Asia-Pacific

Umesh Pokharel

Bonn: Deutsche Welle DW Akademie (2025), 23 pp.

"Amid the Asia-Pacific region’s complex political and media landscape — marked by authoritarian regression, shrinking civic space, digital surveillance, funding shortfalls, and gender inequality — this study has explored the current status of media development in the region vis à vis the OECD ... 's six principles for relevant and effective media support [...] This leads to the following key recommendations: – Safeguard independent journalism through ethical support, risk awareness, and mutual accountability: Media programs must integrate local risk assessments and ethical protections to maintain editorial independence. Donors should adapt visibility approaches to protect partners in sensitive settings and foster open, two-way communication for adaptive, shared accountability. – Secure sustainable, inclusive, and crisis-responsive media financing that reflects media’s public value: Unrestricted, long-term funding is critical for media sustainability, particularly in fragile or exiled contexts. Media should be treated as a core democratic institution with expanded support reaching marginalized communities and integrated into broader development sectors. – Design media support with systemic, evidence-based and inclusive approaches that address structural gaps: Support must be grounded in deep ecosystem diagnostics and be inclusive of marginalized voices. Resources should strengthen hyperlocal and digital-first media while building local advocacy and resilience with donor collaboration enabling long-term impact. – Put local expertise and diverse leadership at the center of strategy, funding, and decision-making processes: Local actors should lead program planning and execution, supported by simplified access, institutional investment, and inclusive leadership — especially for women, rural, and displaced journalists. – Build coherent, transparent, and diplomatically backed coordination mechanisms that prioritize local participation: Donors should institutionalize inclusive coordination platforms, fund coordination roles, and streamline compliance. Diplomatic engagement should align with media development to bolster press freedom during crises. – Invest in contextualized research, continuous learning, and regional knowledge exchange to future-proof media systems: Locally led research, updated journalism education, and regional knowledge-sharing must be supported to address emerging issues and build resilience across Asia-Pacific media landscapes. While the findings are drawn from key informant interviews with ten organizations across eight Asia-Pacific countries and a small online survey sample and thus has limitations in terms of representativity, the report does provide a valuable starting point for broader future assessments and strategic planning in media development in the Asia-Pacific region." (Conclusion and key recommendations, page 22) more

Funding the Future of Local News: Lessons for the UK and beyond from journalism funds around the world Deep Insights

The State of Media Development 2026: Funding, local ownership and adaptation in international media development New

Journalism Funds: Building Sustainable Infrastructure for Healthy Information Ecosystems. Why and How the International Fund for Public Interest Media Supports Journalism Funds New

Funding the Future of Local News: Lessons for the UK and beyond from journalism funds around the world
Deep Insights

The State of Media Development 2026: Funding, local ownership and adaptation in international media development
New

Journalism Funds: Building Sustainable Infrastructure for Healthy Information Ecosystems. Why and How the International Fund for Public Interest Media Supports Journalism Funds
New