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.
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, revealed that almost 90% of the country’s media are bankrolled by USAID, including many that have no other source of funding.
Anti-government Cuban media have been plunged into a similar predicament. Miami-based CubaNet published an editorial asking readers for money. Last year, CubaNet received $500,000 in USAID funding to engage “on-island young Cubans through objective and uncensored multimedia journalism.”
A recent survey of 20 leading Belarusian media outlets found that a staggering 60% of their budgets come from Washington.
In Iran, U.S.-backed media have already had to fire workers. A BBC Persian report noted that more than 30 Iranian groups held a crisis meeting to discuss how to respond to the aid cuts.
Like in Iran, anti-government Nicaraguan media is highly dependent on subsidies from Washington. U.S.-backed Nicaragua Investiga condemned Trump’s decision as a “serious blow”
You’re the one who’s in solidarity with Billionaires in the U.S. and Russia.
When your argument celebrates something that hurts those who are most vulnerable and benefits only billionaires you need to think about if you’re on the right side of not.
Tankie is when you choose to support authoritarian strong men at the expense of vulnerable people.
“If you don’t support the USA’s massive propaganda network, you’re siding with billionaires!” is certainly a take.
If Russia funded Journalists in Mexico which wrote bad things about America, and then Russia cited their paid journalists in their own papers, would they be consuming reality or propaganda?
Get out of your “only one side can be authoritarian” mindset.