Free Republic

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two years ago, when Michael and I first testified before your Weaponization of Government Subcommittee, Democratic members called us “so-called journalists,” suggested we were bought-off “scribes,” and questioned our ethics and loyalties. When we tried to answer, we were told to shut up, take off our tinfoil hats, and remember two things: one, there is no digital censorship, two, if there is digital censorship, it’s for our own good. I was shocked. I thought the whole thing had to be a mistake. No way the party I gave votes to all my life was now pro-censorship....

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives. The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow...

"Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives. The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other...

Kyle Becker @kylenabecker This is way bigger than the Politico scandal. U.S. taxpayers have been funding an obscure news agency called Internews Network for years. Internews is funded heavily by the U.S. government, primarily through USAID. There are 467 grants for Internews totaling a whopping $476.4 MILLION on the http://USASpending.gov website. These massive figures track with Internews' Form 990s, where it discloses tens of millions of dollars in government grants every year. What is Internews? The organization claims to be an "international nonprofit" that supports "independent media" in emerging democracies and uses media as a tool to reduce conflict. A...

Foundation For Freedom's Mike Benz in an interview on 'The War Room' podcast said four-letter agencies are killing the ability to operate an independent website by selectively discriminating. (snip) BENZ: Yeah. We have a program known as media development or media sustainability at the State Department and at USAID.USAID plays a major role in this. In fact, folks can look this up. We have an institution known as Internews, which is a, basically the classic definition of what the CIA got busted doing in the 1950s to the 1970s with Project Mockingbird.But about a third of the National Endowment for...

On Thursday, a panelist at the World Economic Forum's Davos conference suggested creating "exclusion lists" to demonetize sources sharing so-called "disinformation," the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. Jeanne Bourgault, the president and CEO of Internews, an international nonprofit that provides "support" to independent media outlets in more than 100 countries, addressed how to prevent the spread of what she considers inaccurate information during a Davos conference panel titled "Defending Truth." "Global trust in institutions is eroding, reflected in how 40% of people consistently trust news. Empowering internet users with media information literacy, advancing information integrity and enhancing transparency are vital...