The USAID revelations close a gap in our understanding of the American media

Whatever you think of how the data has been obtained, it's priceless information.

The USAID was under the microscope this past week.

Many people are upset about the manner in which the Trump Administration has opened the accounting files of the USAID. But whatever your opinion might be about how the information got out, the data revealed is invaluable and should be considered noteworthy by every American concerned about the actions of our government.

If you’ve read my latest book or any honest investigative book about the American news media you know how extensive and pervasive media distortion is here. But something my book and most books on the subject have barely touched upon is the question of where the money comes from. Running these deceptive media organizations—including producing pages of legitimate journalism to cover for the propaganda—isn’t cheap. It takes millions of dollars to run any remotely polished-looking media organization. A few of these news operations have millions of paying subscribers and a few more take in millions in advertising, but for the majority of these operations—there has been this nagging question: Where does the money come from?

We now have at least part of the answer.

Excellent independent journalism by a variety of writers this week revealed that thousands of news organizations—small and large, domestic and foreign—have been covertly funded, at least in part, by USAID.

Please join me in checking out brand new work on this by:

• Sayer Ji: USAID & BBC Caught Laundering Censorship

• Lee Fang: USAID Funded Censorship, Smears of Americans

• Michael Schellenberger & Alex Gutentag: USAID’s History Of Regime Change, Destabilization, And Censorship Justifies Its Closure By Trump

• Brenda Balleti: Trump’s USAID Shakeup Reveals Agency Financed Censorship and Smear Campaigns

• Adam Garrie: The Unraveling of the Propaganda Industrial Complex

Cautionary Tales

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supposedly helps out the poorest and sickest people in foreign countries, addresses health crises, and builds democratic infrastructure. Its defenders cite numerous instances of airlifted food donation, emergency medical services, and programs in various countries teaching good governance practices. Its detractors point to highly questionable instances of “mission creep,” such as funding transgender operas in Colombia and sponsoring gain-of-function virus research in Wuhan, China.

We now know that while this agency might do the things that both its defenders and detractors suggest with some of its multibillion-dollar budget, it also bestows a large portion of its largesse on newspapers, news websites, censorship programs, and propaganda efforts, including here in our own country.

It is hard to defend this from a constitutional standpoint. The roles of the Press in a free democracy will never be fulfilled if the biggest media organizations are funded by the government. The very notion of a Free Press requires that journalists perform several distinct roles—watchdog, smorgasbord, and bulletin—as I explain in my book Red White & Blind. In order to perform these roles, the Press must be independent and cannot be financially dependent on the government.

It gets worse. It’s one thing if a media organization is explicitly connected at the hip to the government or a public entity (eg. BBC, PBS, NPR). It’s another thing entirely if this funding is done behind the scenes. This seems to be the case with entities ranging from Politico to the New York Times.

As a final cautionary tale, the data revealed by the work of the nascent, controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) show that USAID has not only funded numerous mainstream media operations, it has also covertly funded dozens of organizations tasked with discrediting, silencing, and censoring dissident views on things like covid policies, Ukraine, and Israel, under the rubric of “reducing misinformation.” This is something no government agency can legally do (on account of the pesky First Amendment), but if the government secretly funds NGOs and think tanks so that they do the undermining of speech and press freedoms, it effects the very same control on what can be said in the American media landscape.

The CIA Connection

Intelligence agencies like the CIA have for decades placed undercover spies in USAID offices around the world, and at times the USAID has been a vehicle for covert regime change activities, so the relationship between USAID and the CIA uncovered in this recent journalism is neither new nor a secret. We also know that the CIA has sought and exercised control over countless major American media institutions for many decades through activities like Operation Mockingbird and “the Mighty Wurlitzer,” as I document in my book.

This week, with the work of DOGE, we have another dot to connect. Some of the funding for covert media manipulation has been routed through the ballooning $40 billion budget of USAID. That’s big news.

My take on this: If the Trump Administration shuts down this part of the USAID’s activities, good riddance. Doing so will reduce the channels through which the government can endeavor to spread propaganda and censor dissident opinion. It will also get us closer to the day when independent media operations—like the independent journalists listed above—compete on an equal playing field with the legacy, compromised organs known as the corporate media.

What do you think?

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ps: I haven’t written here in a while, as I’ve been busy with my new baby daughter, my day job, and another personal matter. I aim to write much more frequently this year. Please become a free or premium member if you enjoy my work or find it useful.