Not Your Grandfather’s Foreign Aid

February 18, 2025 by Charlton Allen

Feb 18, 2025

The Democrats and legacy media want Americans to believe that the debate over the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is about lifesaving humanitarian aid—food, medical supplies, and disaster relief.

They don’t want you to know that USAID also funnels millions into media manipulation, funding operations that shape narratives (rather than deliver aid) through the non-governmental organization (NGO) Internews.

And now, with Internews and its domestic arm, the Listening Post Collective, we know that taxpayer dollars aren’t just influencing foreign media—they’re actively reshaping American journalism.

For years, independent journalism in this country has been eroding—replaced by a creeping tide of ideological activists masquerading as reporters. Bias in American media was once covert and nuanced. Not anymore.

But even I didn’t expect to see the day when American taxpayers would be footing the bill for their own indoctrination.

Internews: A Taxpayer-Funded Behemoth with a Partisan Agenda

Before dissecting the Listening Post Collective, it’s critical to understand Internews itself.

This NGO operates less like an independent media organization and more like a taxpayer-funded propaganda machine embedded in media ecosystems.

Internews has received nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding—primarily from USAID, the U.S. State Department, and other federal agencies—while also raking in millions from a familiar assortment of left-wing mega-donors:

George Soros’s Open Society Foundations
The MacArthur Foundation
The Ford Foundation
The Clinton Global Initiative, which in 2023 launched a $10 million media fund with Internews.

Yet despite this massive private donor network, Internews remains over 90% funded by Uncle Sam—which means taxpayers like you and me.

And now, Internews has turned its sights inward, deploying the same narrative-shaping techniques it once exported abroad directly into American journalism through the Listening Post Collective.

A Trojan Horse in Plain Sight

The Listening Post Collective (LPC) is pitched as an effort to revive struggling local news coverage.

But peel back the rhetoric, and you’ll find something far uglier: a network of activist journalists trained to push a curated ideological worldview.

Internews itself makes this clear in its 2023 Impact Report:

For true democracy to thrive, the goal can't just be to save legacy local news but to build a more equitable information ecosystem where everyone has access to high-quality, culturally relevant civic information in the languages they speak. We call these information gardens.

Internews and LPC doesn’t simply support journalism—it engineers newsrooms to reflect a particular ideological structure, where “equitable information ecosystems” replace traditional independent media with curated messaging platforms designed to promote progressive social priorities.

And LPC doesn’t even try to hide it. Their vocabulary guide lays out exactly how LPC frames issues and its overall worldview:

“Civic media” is not journalism, but activism disguised as information.
“Civic power” means mobilizing communities for political action, not informing them.
“Equity” doesn’t mean fairness, it means redistribution of “resources and opportunities to address imbalanced social systems.”

LPC explicitly frames its vision around “Equitable Media,” a concept borrowed from the Ford Foundation’s Transform Media 2020 report, which states:

A truly representative industry that includes media organizations, enterprises, and projects—both new and old, for-profit and nonprofit—by and for people of color.

Rather than supporting neutral, objective journalism, LPC is building a racially and ideologically segmented media industry, all while backed by Internews.

Follow the Money

Internews doesn’t just take taxpayer dollars—USAID has poured millions upon millions into this media cartel, which has pivoted to domestic news through LPC.

But the real kicker with Internews is the private cash:

Why is taxpayer money subsidizing a media machine bankrolled by left-wing billionaire oligarchs?

These are not benign philanthropic foundations—they are proven ideological architects with a track record of advancing divisive, progressive causes.

Yet Internews waltzes through Washington with the credibility of a neutral player.

It’s time—well past time—to start asking why.

Time to Act

Enough is enough. If the Trump administration and a Republican Congress mean business about draining the swamp, they must start here.

Defund Internews’s domestic ventures through USAID—every last cent. Better yet, defund Internews entirely.
Demand a full accounting of taxpayer dollars funneled into this media manipulation racket.
Haul USAID, Internews, and the Listening Post Collective before congressional committees to answer fundamental questions about their purpose, funding, transparency, and accountability.
Deploy every available investigative tool at the disposal of the State Department, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to audit, scrutinize, and expose the Internews taxpayer-supported racket.

Internews and its Listening Post Collective must be seen for what they are—agents of control, propped up by our money and emboldened by our silence.

It’s time to pull the plug.

No More Taxpayer-Backed Propaganda

No more quiet coups justified by progressive word salad. The truth stands on its own—it doesn’t need a federally funded babysitter pushing a left-wing agenda under the cover of darkness.

It’s time to cut all USAID funding for media influence operations and divest from Internews now.

Charlton Allen is an attorney, former chief executive officer, and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and the host of the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC