Why the election of Donald Trump in the United States has turned into an existential crisis for independent media in Latin America
How do democracies die? Quickly, or slowly? In one fell swoop, with a power grab, or through the thousand tiny diminutions of democracy’s life-support system which precede it?
Any political system, at any time, is at risk of being captured: by big businesses with interests that do not align with those of citizens, by rich and powerful individuals who believe they have a transcendent mission (or simply a right, however divined) to forego the constraints of law and democratic control, by zealots of all kinds.
Democracy is a constant struggle against these forces, and a free press, so they teach you at journalism school, is a necessary part of its armour. But what is meant by free? Generally, it’s taken to mean uncensored, unbowed, unafraid to take on the powerful. What is less talked about – at least by non-journalists – is the political economy of it all: the unromantic relationship between funding models and publications, the economic basis of a journalistic ecosystem that can afford to even exist. Because, in that sense, no press is truly free. Words cost money (yes, Translator too – you can support us by pledging support to our newsletter; soon enough you’ll be able to pre-order the magazine itself). When the money isn’t there, the words can evaporate as well.
One of the many things Translator has become aware of over the last few months, is the extraordinary richness of independent digital media in Latin America. (Some of that is reflected in our summaries.) But in an article for Revista Anfibia, journalist and researcher Francisca Skoknic worries about the future of these outlets: places like CIPER in Chile, IDL-Reporteros in Peru (there’s actually an interesting interview with the founder of IDL Gustavo Gorriti here), El Faro in El Salvador, La Silla Vacia in Colombia, Agencia Pública in Brazil, Armando.Info in Venezuela, Quinto Elemento in Mexico, and Anfibia itself.
Skoknic recently spent six months at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University looking at funding models for independent media in Latin America. (A “bucolic life”, she writes.) Her conclusion was that there was way too much dependence on a handful of funders, mostly from the Global North. What she mostly had in mind was the Open Society Foundation, a major funder in the midst of an occasionally brutal strategic review.
Then Donald Trump was elected. “It was like a second meteorite hitting the Yucatán”, one Latin American journalist tells Skoknic, in reference to the environmental cataclysm thought to have ended the planetary dominion of the dinosaurs. Jordy Meléndez, the founder of Mexican organisations Factual, RedLatam and Distintas Latitudes, uses a different natural disaster metaphor: that of an earthquake.
Supporting independent media around the world had become one of the mainstays of USAID, the US government’s international development aid organisation (and a major tool of American soft power). The sledgehammering of USAID by Elon Musk has had far-reaching consequences. In 2023, it funded 6,200 journalists, 707 non-state media and 279 media-related civil society organisations.
Of the 40 independent media organisations in Latin America that Skoknic looked at in her own research, only two received funding directly from USAID. But sometimes the funding is indirect, through intermediaries, principally the National Endowment for Democracy. (Thirteen of Skoknic’s sample received funding from the NED; others may have got support in other ways.) Not all recipients of American funding want to advertise the fact, for fear of making themselves even greater political targets. Reeling from the withdrawal, some outlets have launched fund-raising drives to try and keep their heads above water. One has started selling its furniture to raise funds.
Some journalistic organisations Skoknic looks at do investigative reporting. Others train journalists. Some already operate in harsh domestic political environments. Venezuelan publication Armando.Info works largely from exile. The price of the US retreat from supporting global freedom of expression – however problematic that has always been – will be felt in the skewing of on-the-ground dynamics even further towards the rich and powerful.
Trump may gain some allies along the way. Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador has long complained that foreign-funded media in his country are effectively a “giant money laundering organisation” spouting a globalist agenda. “That problem”, Skoknic notes wryly, “is now solved”.
Why should the US care, anyway? That seems the thought behind the roll-back of US funding. Self-interest – or a very narrow, dismal view of it – is king. (Translator notes that the overall thrust of the Trump administration’s move to lift anti-bribery legislation follows a similar logic: that corruption is just business, and American businesses should be able to do with Chinese or Russian ones do to get it).
“Who is going to save journalism?”, Skoknic asks in the title of her piece. By the end, there is only one answer left: you, dear reader.
The full original article by Francisca Skoknic was published in Spanish on 19 February 2025.
It’s available here: ‘Trump contra la libertad de expresion ¿Quién salvará al periodismo?’, Revista Anfibia.
Revista Anfibia is a Spanish-language online magazine based in Buenos Aires.
