After months of intensive investigation, a small independent news outlet in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region published a story on Jan. 26 about the shadowy world of human organ trafficking. Despite being illegal under Iraqi law, the traffickers exploit lax enforcement to profit from economic misery and desperation. The practice is common knowledge, but few local outlets have tackled the issue for fear of embarrassing powerful interests that fail to prevent it.
“The ruling parties control vast financial resources, allowing them to shape public discourse while obscuring corruption and misgovernance,” said Surkew Mohammed, editor-in-chief of Peregraf News, which published the story. “Independent journalism has always strived to counterbalance this influence.”
A hemisphere away, the US State Department announced that it had initiated a review of all foreign aid funding in order to ensure it aligns with the “America First” policies of the new Trump administration. The sledgehammer decision had an immediate impact on humanitarian and development programs around the world. Stop work orders began landing in inboxes, turning support from Washington from an organizational advantage into a liability overnight.
Independent media outlets like Peregraf are now grappling with the fallout. Operating on limited funds from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), its small team of journalists works to provide news in an unbiased and factual manner and create the kind of well-informed public that is the bedrock of democratic societies.
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As part of that, they take on topics consistently and in-depth in a way that most partisan outlets do not. Independent outlets cover problems with public health, infrastructure, the environment, poverty, and the financial problems of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). They investigate violence and discrimination against women and minority groups, as well as highlighting successes. They are the best source for reporting on violations of press freedom and human rights abuses. Articles about corruption are popular among the increasingly disgruntled populace.
“Without an effective independent media, any talk of freedom in the Kurdistan Region will be incomplete or flawed,” Zryan Muhammed, a board member at Radio Deng, another independent outlet that is also facing funding cuts as a result of the new directive from Washington. She sees the decision as a baffling backtrack on the US’ long-standing commitments.
“A country like the United States should have been more serious about the existence of independent media and active civil society in Iraq and around the world,” she added. “We are concerned that it abandoned its partners.”
Most outlets struggle to secure adequate funding. In the Kurdistan Region, there is plenty of money for media — but it comes with political strings attached.
Party-affiliated outlets dominate the news landscape. Editorial decisions often follow the preferences of political patrons. Major events like protests are either covered intensely or ignored completely depending on the antagonist. Journalists self-censor for fear of facing lawsuits or termination if they cross unwritten red lines.
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There is no reliable accounting for how much the Kurdistan Region’s political parties and affiliated entities spend to outfit their media companies with the latest technology and equipment and hire large staffs. All of the major parties fund mainstream outlets and extensive online influence operations, both of which frequently traffic in misinformation.
The few independent outlets — Peregraf, Radio Deng, Draw Media, and KirkukNow, to name a few — endeavor to exist outside this system and cover the news in the public interest. Yet, party money and advertising taints most local sources, leaving them to search elsewhere in order to operate freely.
“The best way to maintain the independence of our agency was to receive funds from international organizations that … are interested in freedom, freedom of the media, a strong and active civil society, good governance, and the promotion of human rights,” said Muhammed, the Radio Deng board member. NED has supported the outlet for the last 12 years. “We have done a very good job together and have had good results on the ground.”
NED and US funders are some of the most important sources, but European governments and NGOs like International Media Support (IMS) are also active. Still, what they provide amounts to just a fraction of what partisan outlets get to spend.
For example, nearly all of Peregraf’s budget came an NED grant of about $50,000 per year. Its website publicly declares the grant. The other independent Kurdish outlets received similar amounts.
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Henrik Andersen, the Iraq program manager at IMS, estimates that the total outlay for independent media outlets across Iraq from all donors amounts to between $2 and $3 million, shared out to fewer than 10 truly free and independent outlets. Nevertheless, this relatively small outlay primes a dynamic that has a tremendously high impact.
“It really gives bang for the buck,” Andersen said, explaining that it is necessary to take the long view of development. “A lot of it is incremental. Local change that can only occur when local media raises issues that are crucial to local people and their politicians.”
The journalists who spoke to Inkstick felt that their role was to ensure the public’s right to know in a context where so much is deliberately hidden. But they cannot operate if they do not have funding.
“We work as a watchdog,” said Salam Omer, a journalist at independent outlet Kirkuk Now. “We will lose dozens — hundreds — of good stories,” he said.
“We will lose dozens — hundreds — of good stories.”
The Trump administration has said it wants to realign the US foreign policy apparatus, which it says is bloated, suffering from mission creep, and a poor use of tax dollars. It feels that it is time for drastic action.
“If there were programs and if they’ve been cut, the answer would be … that they did not serve either American interests or make us safer, more secure, or more prosperous,” State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters on March 6.
In response, critics argue that most foreign aid, while not perfect, did just that but will do the opposite if the cuts go forward. Instead, they say that the Trump administration is harming the US and its interests through rash and arbitrary decision-making.
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Foreign aid cuts in the US, as well as in the United Kingdom and some European countries, have sent shockwaves that will force a rethink of the humanitarian and development sectors. It has exposed the vulnerability of relying too heavily on a single source for funding at both the system level and the budgets of individual organizations.
Some independent outlets in the Kurdistan Region are more vulnerable than others. Omer said that Kirkuk Now’s budget benefited from a diversity of funders, which have allowed some of its operations to continue. He said that Trump had been clear about his administration’s priorities during the campaign and that they had prepared for that.
Other outlets were not so prescient and have had to cut back on their work. Some journalists are working voluntarily as a way to stretch their budgets, but it is a strategy that can only last for so long. Several outlets face the risk of a complete shutdown if they cannot find new funds.
For his part, Omer struck a note that was both grim and hopeful. “When something like this happens, people ask me: ‘What will happen next?’” he explained. “As a person, as a journalist, I was born in a conflict and raised in a conflict. I work in a conflict. It happens all the time.”
In the meantime, the sudden funding slashes will change the way many people around the world think about the United States, and it will take years to understand the full impact.
“It will be a very, very big blow to the United States,” Omer said, “and, for the values we share with the United States, like democracy, inclusion, diversity, minorities, and building a peaceful society.”
