BY Elizabeth Sitotombe
THE Trump administration has been ruffling plenty of feathers ever since its decision to suspend funding to USAID.
Floodgates of damning revelations were unlocked, with details emerging that USAID was nothing more than a tool for the destabilisation of other countries. Gullible and unethical media practitioners have not been spared either; they were induced by the brown envelope to wax lyrical about Uncle Sam’s foreign policies while rubbishing other countries’ tangible investments on the African continent.
According to WikiLeaks, the US allegedly transferred nearly half a billion dollars (US$472,6 million) to Internews (IN), a shadowy global media group used to set regime change narratives under the guise of media freedom.
With its headquarters in Washington, DC, IN also has offices in London and Paris and regional hubs in Bangkok, Kyiv and Nairobi.
It was founded in 1982 as a media initiative to improve US-Soviet relations during the Cold War. Most of their funding came through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the State Department — the usual regime change culprits.
IN describes itself as an ‘international non-profit organisation supporting media development in over 100 countries’.
It’s self-proclaimed mandate is to train journalists and digital rights activists to advance internet freedom as well as offer business expertise to help media outlets to become financially sustainable as they believe “…everyone deserves trustworthy news and information to make informed decisions about their lives and hold power to account”.
Over the years, millions of dollars have been funnelled into foreign media to prop up US-friendly journalists. The main beneficiaries of this funding include non-governmental organisations (NGOs), journalists, journalist associations, media outlets, training institutes and academic journalism faculties. Grant sizes ranged from a few thousand to millions of US dollars.
The US’ spending data shows that 87 percent of the funding, equivalent to US$415 million, came from USAID in the last 17 years, while an additional US$57 million was awarded by the US Department of State in the same period.
According to WikiLeaks, the history of IN goes way back to the time funding came from the Ford Foundation, George Soros and Omidyar, organisations known for their political media projects and illegal regime change push in many countries.
Now, we all know Soros.
Soros is no stranger to Zimbabwean affairs; way back he adopted a no-holds-barred approach to illegal regime change in the country by funding the opposition. He soon became notorious for funding such initiatives in Africa and other parts of the world.
IN has worked with many media outlets in Zimbabwe as previously exposed in this publication.
Internews in Zimbabwe
Internews country director is Tawedzegwa Musitini, according to reports from various media outlets. The organisation received over US$5 million in funding from USAID towards the 2023 elections.
It was registered in Zimbabwe in 2021.
In Zimbabwe, it was sponsoring a number of media houses (names supplied) as well as some community radio stations including a well-known anti-Government newspaper whose funding was stopped last year for failing to produce the desired results. The paper was reliant on funding from the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA).
OSISA is linked to the Open Society Institute now known as the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a subsidiary of the Soros Foundation. The OSF was established in 1993 in the US.
In 2023, Soros passed on the foundation to his son Alexander Soros who subsequently announced layoffs of 40 percent of staff and ‘significant changes’ to the operating model.
This is how the newspaper mentioned above fell by the wayside.
In Zimbabwe, they also sponsored a number of media projects, such as the capacitation of investigative journalism.
But the emergence of such media houses has, over time, led to the polarisation of the media industry, publishing of falsehoods and partisan journalism within the sector.
Their mandate was to demonise and tarnish the Government’s image through negative publicity.
Towards the elections, journalists were purportedly being trained in ‘election reporting’. Volunteer citizen journalists were also being trained to report on elections as well as taking any videos or pictures whose negativity could tarnish the ruling ZANU PF as a ‘human rights’ abuser.
During that time, many online news outlets popped up like mushrooms in the country, including VOA’s Studio 7.
And now, millionaire tech mogul Elon Musk has made the call to shut down Voice of America, including Studio 7, Zimbabwe.
His call came in response to Richard Grenell, the US Special Envoy for Special Missions, who labelled VOA part of ‘taxpayer-funded State media outlets filled with far-left activists’.
Grenell said the institutions were outdated and “…unnecessary in today’s media environment”.
He further added: “Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are media outlets paid for by the American taxpayers. It is state-owned media. These outlets are filled with far left activists. The far left are a group of people whose political views are mostly liberal. I’ve worked with these reporters for decades. It’s a relic of the past. We don’t need government paid media outlets.”
Sentiments Musk echoed!
VOA, established in 1942, is the oldest and largest US international broadcaster. It creates content in 48 languages across digital platforms, TV and radio, including a ‘special service’ for Zimbabwe called Studio 7, which has been on air since 2003.
In its State Department report, ‘Supporting Human Rights and Democracy’: The US Record 2006’, released in Washington, DC, on April 5 2007, the US made no secret of its intention to have hostile extra-territorial broadcasts targeting Zimbabwe through VOA’s Studio 7.
This is a station that lived up to the expectations of its masters, but, in Zimbabwe, we say good riddance to bad rubbish!
IN operations were shut down in other countries, such as Russia, Belarus and Uzbekistan, where they were viewed as undermining local governments and pushing US interests.
According to These Times: “USAID funds three major media development operations: IN, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), and the largely privately funded Search for Common Ground In December 2007, the Centre for International Media Assistance (CIMA) — a State Department-funded office at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) — reported that in 2006, USAID dished out almost US$53 million for foreign media development activities.”
Was this all for democracy building in sovereign states!
Media outlets under IN have, time and again, proved to be instruments used to destabilise democratically elected governments in countries targeted by the US as evidenced in Sri Lanka and other nations where the influence of foreign-controlled press resulted in the overthrowing of a legitimate government.
Millions of dollars were channelled to media houses, social media influencers and other online commentators meant to mobilise people for an uprising against the Sri Lankan government.
A report unwittingly released by NED showed the names of conduits used for regime change in Sri Lanka.
Among the funds was US$100 000 to ‘Freedom of Expression and Access to Independent Journalism’.
In Ukraine alone, IN has trained 5 000 journalists with the ostensible mission of combating ‘misinformation’.
It took control of nine out of 10 major media organisations in Ukraine. IN-trained journalists and media networks have played a pivotal role in shaping narratives aligned to US interests
Media independence has always been a key element when it comes to democracy building. Many have always questioned the foreign policy objectives behind the US’s media development programmes as they believe it brings about dependency and an obligation to the hidden agendas of US institutions.
According to Isabel Macdonald, communications director at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a New York-based media watchdog, in an interview in 2008: “This is a system that despite its professed adherence to norms of objectivity, has often worked against real democracy by stifling dissent and helping the US Government spread misinformation serviceable to US foreign policy GOAL.”
But who is to blame?
Nations allowing unfettered foreign media free rein in their respective domains pave way for subjugation and domination.
This is an opportunity for governments to weed out the rot implanted in their systems by the West.