Foreign media assistance as a toolbox for local journalists: Mapping the benefits and burdens

Journalists and news organizations are high-profile targets of foreign aid in the form of media assistance programming. Much of this is funded by government agencies, notably (until recently) the US Agency for International Development. These training programs prepare local journalists to combat a variety of routine challenges they may encounter. As such, they represent points of intersection between diverse values and goals from funding countries, target countries, and trainers’ origin countries; they also contribute to journalistic doxa — an understanding of good journalistic practice. With the understanding that program structure and narratives have power to shape the identities and priorities of local journalists even beyond the specific training sessions identified, we analyze 413 policy documents from USAID, the US Agency for Global Media, and the Congressional Research Service to understand what messages these programs send about “good” journalism and its barriers. We find that US foreign policy for journalists overwhelmingly prioritizes individual upskilling, trailed by programming about financial challenges, legal and political contexts, and personal safety. These contribute to a definition of “good” journalism that in many ways resembles liberal democratic practices and places the burden for adapting or fulfilling the definition on individual journalists.