From the New York Times

The U.S. government has been the world’s largest supporter of independent foreign media, principally through U.S.A.I.D., since the early 1980s. The funding is meant to foster democracy through transparency, as part of the country’s larger portfolio of soft power efforts. It has helped finance some of the most consequential investigative journalism of the past decade, including the Panama Papers, which won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering international money laundering, and the FinCEN Files, which showed how banks facilitated corruption around the world.

But the financial support — less than three-tenths of 1 percent of America’s overall foreign aid budget — has been criticized in recent years by some conservatives, who argue that it is little more than paid propaganda for U.S. interests. They have cheered President Trump’s move to freeze nearly all foreign aid, which is now being litigated in court.

The defunding of global newsrooms is the latest fight in an increasingly hostile war between the Trump administration and the press. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, has ordered investigations into PBS, NPR and Comcast. Government agencies have suspended subscriptions to news outlets. Mr. Trump himself has amplified a baseless conspiracy theory that Politico was funded by the federal government, and has restricted The Associated Press’s access because of its refusal to use the name Gulf of America rather than Gulf of Mexico.

Last week, the Global Forum for Media Development, a Brussels-based network of institutions that support journalism, published a letter calling on donors to help struggling outlets.

“We urge governments, donors and stakeholders to take immediate action to address this crisis,” read the letter, which was signed by more than 100 press freedom and media development organizations.