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The USAID Crisis and Funding the Future of Independent Media

Rowan Philp

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (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 m ... edia 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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Crowdfunding Investigations: Lessons Learned About Harnessing Audience Buy-In from Ireland, Brazil, and Portugal

Laura Oliver

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2024)

"Investigative journalism is expensive. Partnerships and grants can help but can also introduce conditions or stall proceedings. Could crowdfunding, where audience members donate to support an investigation, offer an alternative? “Crowdfunding serves as a crucial revenue source in investigative jo ... more

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2022 Annual Report: 20th Anniversary Review

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2023), 21 pp.

"Happy anniversary, GIJN. It’s 20 years since a band of nonprofits gathered in Copenhagen – at the second Global Investigative Journalism Conference – to found a network that would bind together the world’s most enterprising, most determined reporters. At that 2003 meeting, 35 groups came to ... more

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Reporting Guide to Investigating Disability Issues
Key Guidance

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2023)

"This guide seeks to help journalists report on issues impacting people with disabilities in a way that is informed and without prejudice. It includes information on some of the various definitions of disability, important data and resources, and key issues for journalists to investigate. It also di ... more

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GIJN Reporter’s Guide to Investigating War Crimes
Key Guidance

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2023)

"GIJN’s comprehensive, 16-chapter Reporter’s Guide to Investigating War Crimes includes expert advice from more than two dozen specialists and journalists, covering everything from the legal aspects of war, attacks on civilians, conflict-related sexual violence, environmental crimes, banned weap ... more

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Investigating Health & Medicine

Catherine Riva, Serena Tinari

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2020), 90 pp.

"This guide focuses on medicines and medical devices. It aims to provide journalists with the tools and knowledge to independently assess the evidence, critically appraise the risk-benefit ratio of any given product or policy, and expose corruption and malpractice. It can be read as a textbook, one ... more

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Citizen Investigations

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2019), 44 pp.

"This guide seeks to provide useful information from the world of journalism in order to stimulate and instruct the ever-growing number of citizen investigators — the ordinary citizens, members of nongovernmental organizations, and non-journalism professionals interested in using investigative tec ... more

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Investigative Impact: The Role of Investigative Journalism in Fostering Change – and How to Measure It

Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) (2017), 33 pp.