Internews

NGO

Internews  link () Website
File:Internews logo.png
Formation	1982
Founders	David M. Hoffman, Kim Spencer, Evelyn Messinger
Sponsor of	Rappler
Membership	Jeanne Bourgault,Susan Rice, Chris Boskin, Simone Otus Coxe, Lorne Craner, Anja Manuel,Cristiana Falcone Sorrel,,Pamela Austin,Anne Avis,Robert Bole,Kaizar Campwala,Matt Chanoff,Kevin J. Delaney,Kristina Henschen,Richard J. Kessler,Monique Maddy,John Montgomery,Melissa Ong,Simone Otus Coxe,Ben Rader,Anna Soellner,Mark Stephens (solicitor),Daisy McAndrew,Saleyha Ahsan,Yann Borgstedt, Lina Hidalgo
U.S. intelligence-linked organization to create and fund dependent journalists who report on the right things from the right angle.

Internews is a U.S. intelligence-linked organization created to promote “press freedom” and “train journalists”. Since its start in 1982, coincidentally the same year the CIA decided to do its funding through open cutouts, it has worked in more than 70 countries and trained more than 80,000 people in media skills.

The purpose is to create and fund dependent journalists who report on the right things from the right angle. In 2021, Internews and local media partners it supports around the world "are communicating life-saving health information to communities hard-hit by COVID-19" stressing "the vital role local journalists play in vaccine uptake".

Projects

In Tanzania, after the suspicious death of COVID-19 Sceptic president John Magufuli and the swearing-in of the new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, Internews paid journalists to put pressure on the government to change the line.

Ads for News is an Internews-led initiative in cooperation with the World Economic Forum, is "a response to the financial decline and instability of independent media around the world", It has created an "inclusion list" of intelligence-approved small "independent" media outlets where corporations are encouraged to place their advertising spending. The list is also an attempt to "exclude content unsuitable for brands, such as disinformation", ie starve genuinely independent media of funding.

"Every story is a climate story"

Its Internews Earth Journalism Network works to reinforce the climate change agenda. It has close to 12,000 members from 180 countries, and pays for "workshops and training materials, develops innovative environmental news sites, offers fellowships and reporting grants, builds networks of environmental journalists, and supports local news production". Utilizing the list, brands can actively support "reputable local news".

According to a report by Deakin University for Internews and Earth Journalism Network, now "Every story is a climate story", and recommends that:

• Journalists must focus on making global environmental issues locally relevant.
• Climate and environmental journalism should cover solutions as well as problems.
• Climate justice perspectives should be highlighted in climate change reporting.
• Journalists need to consider their own, and their media outlet's position on the spectrum between 'objectivity' and 'advocacy'.
• Journalists should not provide a platform for sources that deny climate science.
• Journalists need to build their knowledge on attribution science.
• Journalists need to work together to ensure climate/environment issues suffuse more reporting.
• Journalists need to make clear humans' dependence on the natural world

Internews Europe

Internews Europe is stated to be an independent media development organization, based in London, UK, and relying mainly on European funding. Internews Europe is chaired by Mark Stephens, who was the lawyer for Julian Assange in 2010. In the UK, its funding and training is given to community radio stations as well, local journalism and "grassroots, volunteer-led media". The money also comes from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Funding

Internews Network is funded by a host of U.S. government agencies including the State Department, USAID, North American Aerospace Defense Command, and the National Endowment for Democracy. It additionally receives funding from numerous corporations and foundations including the CIA-linked Ford Foundation and billionaire George Soros's Open Society Foundation. The outfit has run initiatives for and received nearly $1 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Google donated $1million to “train journalists, fact checkers, academics, NGOs to fight misinformation and fake news” in India, having since expanded its mission to “combat pandemic-related misinformation with stringent fact-checking.”

The US Agency for International Development and the US Department of State provided the overwhelming (99.98%) of funding for Internews operations in 2009.