How the United States has penetrated South African media

Over the past two decades, the NED and OSF have jointly established the Global Forum for Media Development, an international network that presently consists of over 100 media organisations working in around 50 countries. This public-private partnership appears set to continue with the US fixated on containing China and Soros having recently declared that Chinese President Xi Jinping is “the greatest threat that open societies face today”.

Washington intentionally partners with private foundations, such as the OSF and Luminate, because they can operate in situations where the US government involvement would not be politically expedient. This strategy was explicitly discussed in CIMA’s inaugural report in 2008:

Private sector funding of independent media abroad … has several advantages over public financing. Private funders can be more flexible … and their programs can operate in countries where U.S. government-funded programs are unwelcome. “In many places around the world, the people we train are more open to participating in programs funded by private sources than those funded by the U.S. government,” says Patrick Butler, ICFJ [International Center for Journalists] vice president.

In addition to purchasing a majority ownership stake in Mail & Guardian, OSF has undisclosed investments in a number of other South African media outlets including Daily Maverick. 

In August 2017, OSF and Luminate jointly founded the South Africa Media Innovation Program (SAMIP), a multimillion-dollar investment initiative. SAMIP currently supports ­­­24 South African media organisations, including Mail & Guardian, Daily Maverick, The Daily Vox, and the podcasting network Volume. 

In addition to these investments, OSF and Luminate have also issued over US$15 million in media-related grants to South African organisations since 2017, including Ground Up, Africa Check, and Viewfinder, in addition to the aforementioned publications.

Given the well-documented political partnership that exists between these private foundations and the US government, does their financing compromise the independence of their grantees in South African media?

Take, for example, the leading anti-corruption watchdog amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, an organisation which prides itself on being “fiercely independent” and rejecting “funding from governments or corporates”. 

Founded in 2010 at Mail & Guardian by veteran reporters Sam Sole and Stefaans Brümmer, amaBhungane initially received two-thirds of its funding from the paper and one third from OSF. By 2016 the ratio had reversed, with private foundations accounting for lion’s share of funding and Mail & Guardian only accounting for 29 percent. That same year amaBhungane formally separated from the paper, although the two organisations have continued to work together. From 2016-21, amaBhungane has received approximately US$1.4 million from OSF and Luminate.

Although amaBhungane claims that they “do not take funding to investigate specific stories or themes,” this appears to be contradicted by OSF’s financial disclosure. According to OSF, in 2016 “we initiated high-agency work on state capture through our research and advocacy partners” and provided funding to amaBhungane and Daily Maverick specifically “to commence research on the extent of state capture in South Africa” and “on the extent to which state-owned enterprises have been captured by vested interests”.

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