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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">USAID Falls, Exposing a Giant Network of US-Funded “Independent” Media</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Alan Macleod</div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">February 18, 2025</div>
</div>
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<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><img src="cid:ii_m7dk70o60" alt="AP25039739918751_edited.jpg" width="394" height="222"><br><p>The
Trump administration’s decision to pause USAID funding has plunged
hundreds of so-called “independent media” outlets into crisis, thereby
exposing a worldwide network of thousands of journalists, all working to
promote U.S. interests in their home countries.</p>
<p>In late January, President Trump—along with help from the head of the
Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk—began implementing
sweeping changes to the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) on the premise that the organization’s promotion of
liberal and progressive causes was a gigantic waste of money. The
group’s website and Twitter account have disappeared amid widespread
speculation that it will cease to exist or be folded into <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/marco-rubio-perfect-little-puppet-most-dangerous-man-alive/288757/">Marco Rubio’s</a> State Department.</p>
<p>The pausing of aid immediately sent shockwaves across the planet, not
least in the international media, many of which, unbeknownst to their
readers, are totally dependent on financing from Washington.</p>
<p>In total, USAID spends over a quarter of a billion dollars yearly
training and funding a vast, sprawling network of more than 6,200
reporters at nearly 1,000 news outlets or journalism organizations, all
under the rubric of promoting “independent media.”</p>
<p>With the money tap unexpectedly turned off, outlets around the world
are panicking, turning to their readers for donations, and thereby
outing themselves as fronts for U.S. power.</p>
<h2>Media on the Dole: Cash Flow Crisis Hits Hard</h2>
<p>Perhaps the country most affected by this sudden change in policy is
Ukraine. While criticizing the decision, Oksana Romanyuk, the Director
of Ukraine’s Institute for Mass Information, <a href="https://imi.org.ua/en/news/oksana-romaniuk-90-of-ukrainian-media-survived-thanks-to-grants-i66314" target="_blank">revealed</a> that almost 90% of the country’s media are bankrolled by USAID, including many that have no other source of funding.</p>
<p>Olga Rudenko, the editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent (an outlet MintPress <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/kyiv-independent-deep-dive-the-wests-in-kind-answer-to-putins-propaganda/280167/">previously revealed</a> receives funds from Washington), also denounced the decision. Last month, she <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/trumps-aid-freeze-stranded-independent-ukrainian-media-heres-how-you-can-help/" target="_blank">wrote</a>
that the USAID freeze is a greater threat to independent Ukrainian
journalism than either the COVID-19 pandemic or the Russian invasion.
The Kyiv Independent has since <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/kyiv-independent-launches-fundraiser-to-support-ukrainian-front-line-media-after-us-aid-freeze/" target="_blank">asked</a>
its readers to support a funding drive to keep pro-U.S. Ukrainian media
alive. Other large Ukrainian outlets, such as Hromadske and Bihus.Info,
have <a href="https://strana.news/news/479103-rjad-smi-poprosili-donatit-im-posle-ostanovki-prohramm-usaid.html" target="_blank">done</a> the same.</p>
<p>Anti-government Cuban media have been plunged into a similar
predicament. Miami-based CubaNet published an editorial asking readers
for money. “We are facing an unexpected challenge: the suspension of key
funding that sustained part of our work.” they <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-funded-cuban-media-limbo-after-trump-orders-usaid-closed-2025-02-10/" target="_blank">wrote</a>;
“If you value our work and believe in keeping the truth alive, we ask
for your support.” Last year, CubaNet received $500,000 in USAID funding
to engage “on-island young Cubans through objective and uncensored
multimedia journalism.” Cynics, however, might visit the website and see
little but anti-communist talking points.</p>
<p>Madrid-based Diario de Cuba is also in dire straits. Last weekend, the outlet’s director, Pablo Díaz Espí, <a href="https://diariodecuba.com/cuba/1738958160_59821.html" target="_blank">noted</a>
that “aid to independent journalism from the government of the United
States has been suspended, which makes our work more difficult” before
asking viewers to subscribe. Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the
United States has spent giant amounts of money financing media networks
in an attempt to bring the government down. Between 1985 and 2013 alone,
Radio and TV Martí <a href="https://archive.ph/8b3HD#selection-995.25-995.107" target="_blank">received</a> over half a billion dollars in taxpayer money.</p>
<img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/AP22280251622687_edited.jpg" alt="USAID Head visits exhibition of destroyed russian military equipment in Mykhailivska Square" width="394" height="394" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;">Samantha
Power, then-head of USAID, visits an exhibition of destroyed Russian
military equipment in Kiev, Ukraine. October, 2022. Photo | AP
<p>Across the world, the funding freeze has put outlets in immediate
danger of shutting down. Burmese organizations have already begun firing
staff. Around 200 journalists are thought to be directly paid by USAID.
“We are struggling to survive,” Wunna Khwar Nyo, chief editor of
Western News, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-aid-freeze-spells-uncertain-future-for-international-media/7958494.html" target="_blank">told</a>
Voice of America. “I cannot imagine [how people will manage] without a
salary to pay your rent,” worried Toe Zaw Latt of the Independent Press
Council Myanmar.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/11/trump-usaid-cuts-freeze-press-freedom-ukraine-afghanistan-media-rsf" target="_blank">survey</a>
of 20 leading Belarusian media outlets found that a staggering 60% of
their budgets come from Washington. Speaking about the USAID funding
pause, Natalia Belikova of Press Club Belarus <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/11/trump-usaid-cuts-freeze-press-freedom-ukraine-afghanistan-media-rsf" target="_blank">warned</a>, “They are at risk of fading away and gradually disappearing.”</p>
<p>In Iran, U.S.-backed media have already had to fire workers. A BBC Persian <a href="https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c75zq06pwlro" target="_blank">report</a> noted that more than 30 Iranian groups held a crisis meeting to discuss how to respond to the aid cuts.</p>
<p>Like in Iran, anti-government Nicaraguan media is highly dependent on
subsidies from Washington. U.S.-backed Nicaragua Investiga <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2025/01/31/trump-executive-order-us-regime-change-network/" target="_blank">condemned</a>
Trump’s decision as a “serious blow” against a media that “depends
largely on the financial and technical support provided by agencies such
as USAID.”</p>
<p>Another country awash in Western NGO cash is Georgia. On January 30, Georgia Today <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2025/01/31/trump-executive-order-us-regime-change-network/" target="_blank">noted </a>that
USAID financing has been a “cornerstone” of the country since its
independence. It warned that many organizations would immediately
shutter their doors for good without the constant flow of money.</p>
<p>Similar reports have emerged from <a href="https://lat.rt.rs/srbija-i-balkan/127833-usaid-srbija-suspenzija-saradnja/" target="_blank">Serbia</a>, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-aid-long-lifeline-eastern-europe-trump-cuts-118298184" target="_blank">Moldova</a>, and across <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/11/trump-usaid-cuts-freeze-press-freedom-ukraine-afghanistan-media-rsf" target="_blank">Latin America</a>. Meanwhile, social media users have <a href="https://x.com/AtamanIsoir/status/1891666799105638542" target="_blank">noticed</a> that many of the most prominent anti-China voices on their respective platforms have gone strangely silent since the shutdown.</p>
<h2>“Independent” Media, Brought to You By the US Government</h2>
<p>The cuts to USAID, therefore, have highlighted that the United States
has consciously created a vast matrix encompassing thousands of
journalists worldwide, all producing pro-U.S. content.</p>
<p>Yet, in discussing the USAID cuts, corporate media has insisted on
describing these outlets as “independent.” “Independent outlets in [the]
former Soviet Union are poised to be hurt by temporary shut down at key
US agency,” <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/10b6a51f-35d4-4f17-86ff-15bc9751f73d" target="_blank">wrote</a>
The Financial Times. “From Ukraine to Afghanistan, independent media
organizations across the world are being forced to lay off staff or shut
down after losing USAID funding,” The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/11/trump-usaid-cuts-freeze-press-freedom-ukraine-afghanistan-media-rsf" target="_blank">told</a> its readers. Meanwhile, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/02/07/ukraine-russia-independent-media-trump-usaid/" target="_blank">went</a>
with “Independent media in Russia, Ukraine lose their funding with
USAID freeze.” Perhaps most notably, even organizations like Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) <a href="https://rsf.org/en/usa-trump-s-foreign-aid-freeze-throws-journalism-around-world-chaos?mc_cid=4e8b353ce6&mc_eid=2f6d1b7690" target="_blank">did</a> the same. Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF U.S., <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/11/trump-usaid-cuts-freeze-press-freedom-ukraine-afghanistan-media-rsf" target="_blank">commented</a>,
“Non-profit newsroom and media organizations have already had to cease
operations and lay off staff. The most likely scenario is that after the
90-day freeze, they will disappear forever.”</p>
<p>There is already a serious problem in modern discourse with the term “independent media,” a phrase commonly <a href="https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/glossary_term/independent-media/" target="_blank">defined</a>
as any media outlet, no matter how big an empire it is, that is not
owned or funded by the state (as if that is the only form of dependence
or control to which media is subject). But even at this extremely low
bar, all these outlets fail. Indeed, Weimers’ warning underlines the
fact that none of them are independent in any meaningful way. They are,
in fact, <i>completely dependent</i> on USAID for their very existence.</p>
<p>Not only that, but some USAID-backed journalists candidly admit that
their funding dictates their output and what stories they do and do not
cover. Leila Bicakcic, CEO of Center for Investigative Reporting (a <a href="https://cin.ba/en/about/" target="_blank">USAID-supported</a> Bosnian organization), <a href="https://dalek.zone/w/xjUjomMZxRCvp3Z3Gtk9sT" target="_blank">admitted</a>,
on camera, that “If you are funded by the U.S. government, there are
certain topics that you would simply not go after, because the U.S.
government has its interests that are above all others.”</p>
<p>While USAID specifically targets foreign audiences, much of its
messaging comes back to America, as those foreign outlets are used as
credible, independent, and reliable sources for newspapers or cable news
networks to cite. Thus, its bankrolling of foreign media ends up
flooding domestic audiences with pro-U.S. messaging as well.</p>
<p>While the press may be lamenting the demise of USAID-backed media, many heads of state are not. “Take your money with you,” <a href="https://orinocotribune.com/the-demise-of-usaid-few-regrets-in-latin-america/" target="_blank">said</a> Colombian President Gustavo Petro, “it’s poison.”</p>
<p>Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, shared a rare moment of
agreement with Petro. “Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing
into their countries because they understand where much of that money
actually ends up,” he <a href="https://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1886059275174506850" target="_blank">wrote</a>, explaining that:</p>
<blockquote><p>While marketed as support for development, democracy, and
human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition
groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements. At
best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that help people in
need (there are such cases), but the rest is used to fuel dissent,
finance protests, and undermine administrations that refuse to align
with the globalist agenda.”</p></blockquote>
<h2>Controlling the Narrative</h2>
<p>USAID influences global media and the means of communication in far
more profound ways than simply sponsoring news outlets. Last March, a
97-page USAID <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/usaid-disinformation-primer-global-censorship-name-of-democracy/287075/">document</a> was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.</p>
<p>The document revealed a vast operation to censor and suppress wide
swaths of the internet, including Twitch, Reddit, 4Chan, Facebook,
Twitter, Discord and alternative media websites. There, USAID lamented,
users were able to build communities to create “populist expertise” and
develop opinions and viewpoints that challenge official U.S. government
narratives.</p>
<p>Although its internal justification was halting the flow of mis- and
disinformation, it seemed particularly concerned with “malinformation” –
a concept it defines as speech that is factually correct but
“misleading” (i.e., bothersome truths the U.S. government would prefer
the public does not know).</p>
<p>Chief among the methods USAID outlines to suppress independent media
is what it calls “advertiser outreach” – in effect, threatening
advertisers into cutting ties with smaller websites to throttle them
financially.</p>
<p>The report makes clear that its main concern is not China or Russia, but its domestic population:</p>
<blockquote><p>Discussions on disinformation and misinformation often
revolve around assumptions of state actors driving the issue. However,
problematic information more regularly originates from networks of
alternative sites and anonymous individuals who have created their own
‘alt media’ online spaces.”</p></blockquote>
<p>USAID suggests directing the public towards mainstream, corporate
sources of information and “psychologically inoculating” them against
inconvenient facts that challenge U.S. power by “prebunking” information
before people see it. Prebunking includes “discrediting the brand, the
credibility and reputation of those making false allegations”—in other
words, a state-directed attack against alternative media and critics of
the U.S. government. The full report – and a MintPress News
investigation on the subject – can be <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/usaid-disinformation-primer-global-censorship-name-of-democracy/287075/">read here</a>.</p>
<p>USAID, however, is far from the only government institution
attempting to control global narratives. The National Endowment for
Democracy (<a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/trump-starves-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-elon-musk-doge" target="_blank">reportedly</a> also in Musk and DOGE’s crosshairs) also <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-daily-nk-news-north-korea-brought-by-cia/285873/">sponsors</a> <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/documents-reveal-us-ned-spent-22m-promoting-anti-russia-narrative-ukraine/279734/">media</a> <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/hong-kong-protest-united-states-destabilize-china/261712/">around </a>the world.</p>
<p>The Department of Defense, meanwhile, fields a giant clandestine army
of at least 60,000 people whose job is to influence public opinion, the
majority doing so from their keyboards. A 2021 exposé from<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-undercover-army-1591881" target="_blank"> Newsweek</a>
described the operation as, “The largest undercover force the world has
ever known,” and warned that this troll army was likely breaking
domestic and international law.</p>
<p>The Twitter Files further<a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/" target="_blank"> exposed</a>
the Department of Defense’s shadowy actions. It showed how the DoD
worked with Twitter to carry out a Washington-run influence project
across the Middle East, even as the app claimed it was working to shut
down foreign-backed disinformation operations. And investigations from
MintPress News have revealed how the highest echelons of top social
media apps, such as <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-ex-cia-agents-deciding-facebook-content-policy/281307/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/twitter-hiring-alarming-number-spooks-secret-agents/281114/">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/national-security-search-engine-google-ranks-cia-agents/281490/">Google</a>, <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/tiktok-chinese-trojan-horse-run-by-state-department-officials/284353/">TikTok</a>, and <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/jessica-ashooh-reddit-national-security-state-plant/277639/">Reddit</a>, are filled with former officials from the CIA, USAID, and other national security agencies.</p>
<p>Furthermore, U.S.-based groups with close government links, such as
the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, all give huge grants to journalists and
foreign media outlets.</p>
<h2>A Shady Organization</h2>
<p>Some might ask what the problem with receiving money from USAID is in
the first place. Supporters of the organization say it does a great
deal of good around the world, helping to vaccinate children or
providing clean drinking water. Looking at the organization’s (now
defunct) website, one would assume it is a charitable group promoting
progressive values. Indeed, many on the conservative right appear to
have taken this woke veneer at face value. Explaining his decision to
close the organization down, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886098373251301427" target="_blank">described</a> it as a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”</p>
<p>This, however, could barely be further from the truth. In reality,
USAID, from its inception, has consistently targeted leftist and
non-aligned governments, particularly in Latin America, Africa, and
Asia.</p>
<p>In 2021, USAID was a key player behind a failed Color Revolution (a pro-U.S. insurrection) in Cuba. The institution <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/documents-point-to-us-hand-in-cuba-protests/277987/">spent</a>
millions of dollars funding and training musicians and activists on the
island, organizing them into a revolutionary, anti-communist force.
USAID offered up to $2 million per grant to applicants, <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/documents-point-to-us-hand-in-cuba-protests/277987/">noting</a>
that “Artists and musicians have taken to the streets to protest
government repression, producing anthems such as ‘Patria y Vida,’ which
has not only brought greater global awareness to the plight of the Cuban
people but also served as a rallying cry for change on the island.”</p>
<p>USAID has also created a number of covert apps aimed at regime
change. The most notorious of these was Zunzuneo, often described as
Cuba’s Twitter. The idea was to create a successful messaging and news
app to dominate the Cuban market, then slowly drip-feed the population
anti-government propaganda and direct them to protests and “smart mobs”
aimed at triggering a color-style revolution.</p>
<p>In an effort to hide its ownership of the project, the U.S. government <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/documents-point-to-us-hand-in-cuba-protests/277987/">held</a>
a secret meeting with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to entice him to
invest in it. It is unclear to what extent, if any, Dorsey helped, as he
has declined to speak on the matter.</p>
<img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/AP25036756679941_edited.jpg" alt="USAID protest" width="394" height="394" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;">USAID
employees along with politicians and activists gather outside the
Capitol Building in Washington DC to protest funding cuts to USAID,
February 5th 2025. Photo | AP<br>
<p>In 2014, USAID’s Cuban program was again exposed. This time, the organization had been <a href="https://www.liberationschool.org/exposed-three-usaid-plots-to-destabilize-cuba/" target="_blank">running</a> fake HIV-prevention workshops as a cover to gather intelligence and recruit a network of agents on the island.</p>
<p>In Venezuela, too, USAID has served as a force for regime change. It was <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2600/" target="_blank">intimately involved</a>
in the failed 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez, funding and
training key coup leaders in the run-up to the insurrection. Since then,
it has consistently attempted to subvert Venezuelan democracy,
including by funding self-declared president Juan Guaidó. It was even at
the center of a disastrous 2019<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/burning-aid-colombia-venezuela/255489/"> stunt</a> where U.S.-backed figures <a href="https://fair.org/home/western-media-fall-in-lockstep-for-cheap-trump-rubio-venezuela-aid-pr-stunt/" target="_blank">attempted</a> to drive trucks full of USAID-sponsored “aid” into the country, only to light the cargo on fire themselves and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/100000006385986/the-us-blamed-maduro-for-burning-aid-to-venezuela-new-video-casts-doubt.html" target="_blank">blame</a> the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-aid-fire-video.html" target="_blank">government</a>.</p>
<p>In an attempt to stamp out the threat of socialism, USAID agents are
also known to have taught torture techniques to right-wing Latin
American dictatorships. In Uruguay, USAID’s Dan Mitrione <a href="https://archive.org/details/hidden-terrors-the-truth-about" target="_blank">taught</a>
police how to use electricity on different sensitive areas of the body,
the use of drugs to induce vomiting and advanced psychological torture
techniques. Mitrione wished to demonstrate on live subjects, so he would
kidnap beggars from the streets and torture them to death.</p>
<p>The notorious Guatemalan police, complicit in the country’s genocide
of the Mayan population, also relied heavily on USAID for training. By
1970, at least 30,000 police officers had <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210120110125/https://www.pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/" target="_blank">undergone</a> counterinsurgency training, organized and paid for by USAID.</p>
<p>USAID was even more heavily implicated in genocide in Peru in the
1990s. Between 1996 and 2000, Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori ordered
the forced mass sterilization of 300,000 mostly indigenous women. USAID
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/mar/14/peru-women-forced-sterilisation-justice" target="_blank">donated</a> some <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210120110125/https://www.pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/" target="_blank">$35 million</a> to the program, now widely <a href="https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol14/iss2/8/" target="_blank">understood</a> to constitute a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26330024231210306?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.1" target="_blank">genocide</a>. No American official has faced any legal repercussions.</p>
<p>USAID’s beginnings can be traced back to 1961, an era when national
liberation movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia were fighting –
and winning – independence. Progressive revolutions, such as in Cuba,
were inspiring the world, and Communist states like the USSR were
developing rapidly, challenging the dominance of the United States.</p>
<p>USAID was established as a counterweight to all this, an attempt to
shore up conservative, pro-U.S. governments and undermine or redirect
more radical ones. Since its inception, it has worked hand-in-glove with
the Central Intelligence Agency.</p>
<p>In 1973, Senator Ted Kennedy wrote a letter to the CIA, directly
asking if they were using USAID to carry out operations in Southeast
Asia. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger himself responded in the
affirmative. For that reason, former CIA officer John Kiriakou <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8vhKorSzvw" target="_blank">labeled</a> USAID as little more than a “propaganda adjunct of the agency.”</p>
<p>Surprisingly, The New York Times published a similar assessment. In 1978, its correspondent, A. J. Langguth, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210120110125/https://www.pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/" target="_blank">wrote</a>
that the “two primary functions” of the USAID global police training
program were to allow the CIA to “plant men with local police in
sensitive places around the world” and to bring to the United States
“prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees.</p>
<p>Today, the institution presents itself as trying to empower civil
society to take the lead in promoting democracy. But, as WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange <a href="https://orbooks.com/catalog/when-google-met-wikileaks/" target="_blank">wrote</a>,
the past fifty years have authentic civil society actors, such as
churches and unions, hollowed out, leaving only astroturfed think tanks
and NGOs, “whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute
political agendas by proxy.”</p>
<p>In the panic surrounding its closure, many USAID figures have let the
cat out of the bag and made this point directly themselves. “It’s not a
generosity project,” one employee <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/usaid-staffers-stunned-angered-trump-admins-doge-shutdown-40b-agency" target="_blank">told</a> Fox News, adding, “This is a national security agency and effort at its core.”</p>
<h2>Our Unfree Media</h2>
<p>Ultimately, what this story reveals is that our media is not free; it
is dominated by powerful interests. The most powerful of these is the
U.S. government. To Washington, controlling public discourse is as
important as controlling the seas or the skies. That is why they invest
billions of dollars into doing so.</p>
<p>It also explains the reaction whenever actors challenge the U.S.-dominated media ecosystem. In the 2000s, the U.S. military <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/04/jaz-a09.html" target="_blank">deliberately</a> <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2024/01/blinkens-request-to-censor-al-jazeera-against-all-american-values?lang=en" target="_blank">bombed</a>
Al-Jazeera buildings after the network challenged Washington’s
narrative around the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. After RT began gaining a
foothold in the 2010s, the network was demonized and canceled. TikTok
is on the verge of being banned in the U.S., and independent media is
constantly shadowbanned, demonetized, defamed and deplatformed.</p>
<p>We like to think we are free thinkers. Yet the revelation that USAID
funds a vast network of journalists around the world, shaping narratives
favorable to U.S. interests, should highlight the fact that we are
swimming in an ocean of propaganda – and most of us do not even realize
it. The U.S. is spending billions to promote its interests and demonize
China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and its other enemies, all in an attempt
to curate our realities.</p>
<p>While USAID as an organization looks to be formally gone and subsumed by the State Department, Secretary of State Rubio <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/usaid-washington-workers/index.html" target="_blank">said</a>
that many of its functions will continue as long as they are aligned
with “the national interest” rather than “charity.” As such, it likely
will not be long until the money spigot is turned back on for these
pro-U.S. outlets. However, at least USAID’s demise has done at least one
good thing; it has exposed vast swathes of global media for what they
are: imperial propaganda projects of the United States.</p>
<p>Feature photo | Signs and flowers are left by advocates of the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) outside their
headquarters in Washington DC, February 8th, 2025. Aaron Schwartz | AP</p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Alan MacLeod</a></strong> is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Bad-News-from-Venezuela-Twenty-years-of-fake-news-and-misreporting/Macleod/p/book/9781138489233" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting</a> and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Propaganda-in-the-Information-Age-Still-Manufacturing-Consent-1st-Edition/MacLeod/p/book/9781138366404?fbclid=IwAR2xQQWJd98C25wapG4ynmlEnGvL5wxG_mp5RwpBwtwPDxInjNZ1Oo7KD-E" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent</a>, as well as <a href="https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/65/56" rel="noopener" target="_blank">a</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396818823639#articleShareContainer" rel="noopener" target="_blank">number</a> <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/blar.12940" rel="noopener" target="_blank">of</a> <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00064/full" rel="noopener" target="_blank">academic</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920518820934" rel="noopener" target="_blank">articles</a>. He has also contributed to <a href="https://fair.org/author/alan-macleod/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">FAIR.org</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, <a href="https://www.salon.com/writer/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Salon</a>, <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/author/alan-macleod/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">The Grayzone</a>, <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/author/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Jacobin Magazine</a>, and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/alan-macleod" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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