Illustrative of Internews’s exportation of Western social liberalism, the organization issued a guide for Spanish language journalists in February 2023, which instructed them to adopt practices endorsed by transgender activists. To start, the guide asserts that there is a separation between biological sex and gender identity. It goes on to say human beings can be “non-binary,” meaning neither male nor female. Journalists were advised by Internews to use local pro-transgender activist groups as resources for their stories and encouraged to ask the people they interviewed for their preferred pronouns before speaking.

A Disclaimer at the bottom of the guide says it was created with the support of USAID.

The transgender journalism guide, alongside numerous other examples of left-of-center resources, was produced under the leadership of longtime Internews President and CEO Jeanne Bourgault. Federal Election Commission records show that Bourgault has donated thousands of dollars to Democratic politicians over the years. She donated extensively to former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, as well as to the campaigns of former President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Political donations aside, Bourgault has argued that the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements highlighted the need for diversity in newsrooms and advocated a strategy to censor certain viewpoints by putting pressure on advertisers. Under Bourgault’s tenure, Internews published a resource on human rights for journalists, which explained that there sometimes should be “limits” on free speech to protect people’s “right to live free from racism.”

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions upon taking office was to pause all funding disbursed through USAID, including resources earmarked for Internews. 

Proponents of Trump’s cuts argued that too much of USAID’s funding supported liberal vanity projects out of line with America’s national interests. Critics of the cuts, often sympathetic to the need to reduce waste, however, warmed that Trump’s cuts were too sudden and would allow China to expand its influence in the absence of American soft power.

While it is true that Trump’s USAID cuts have crippled some of America’s premier anti-China influence operations, it’s also true that USAID-funded NGOs such as Internews also used public dollars to launch projects aligned with the interests of left-of-center activist groups.

Improving inclusion for LGBT people and other “historically disadvantaged” groups in foreign media coverage, for example, was listed as one of Internews’s key priorities in its 2016-2021 strategic framework. 

The NGO acted on this goal, touting its training of Indian LGBT and environmentalist activists in a 2022 blog post and publishing guides for reporters that warned them not to include certain perspectives on LBGT matters as they may “fuel prejudice and discrimination.” Internews also facilitated meetings between LGBT activists and African journalists to help shape media coverage on the continent. 

Internews has gone beyond pushing to make foreign media outlets friendlier to the LGBT movement. In its 2022-2024 “Gender Equality and Inclusion Strategy,” it advises journalists to adopt an “intersectional” approach to their coverage.

The document, which begins by asserting that “the inclusion and empowerment of women, girls, and gender and sexual minorities within the media and information sector is a prerequisite for the recognition and integral enjoyment of rights by all,” outlines how Internews fostered connections between journalists and organizations promoting expanded LGBT and reproductive rights in a ploy to influence how such matters were covered abroad.

In another document, the organization’s 2024 “Gender Programming Framework,” Internews reveals what it ultimately hopes to obtain through training foreign journalists. The framework states that Internews’s strategy has been to shift foreign media environments to the advantage of left-wing activists seeking to achieve “gender justice” and expand LGBT rights. 

FIRST-CLASS FLIGHTS, SEVEN-FIGURE SALARIES: HOW NGO BOSSES ARE LIVING GOOD ON THE TAXPAYER DIME

The claim that left-wing activist groups support Internews’s agenda is backed by financial evidence. 

Internews’s engagement with left-of-center philanthropy goes back decades, with the organization having partnered with the Soros Foundation to run the Balkan Media Network in 1994. Tax disclosures show that the NGO has raked in millions of dollars from liberal philanthropies such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Soros family’s Open Society Foundations, the World Resources Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, the James Irvine Foundation, PACT, Arabella Advisors’s New Venture Fund, and many other left-of-center grantmakers over the years.

These left-of-center charities share several goals with Internews. The Gates and Hewlett foundations, for instance, place great emphasis on advancing abortion access in the developing world. Internews, in a similar vein, described the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade as an example of “gender injustice” and, through its program in Kenya, helped reporters publish abortion-rights stories. Internews, in a guide written to instruct journalists on how to better include women’s perspectives in their stories, touted liberal figures such as Harris and late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as examples of the positive impacts of greater gender equality. 

The left-of-center groups funding Internews also tend to believe that man-made climate change is one of the greatest problems facing the world, a view shared by Internews and present in its work with foreign journalists.

In a May 2024 guide Internews produced for journalists, the organization said, “Every story is a climate story” and advised writers that their coverage should call attention to the severity of climate change. According to the guide, journalists “should not provide a platform for sources that deny climate science” but should highlight “climate justice perspectives.” 

Internews’s ideological bent matches not only the preferences of those funding it but also the beliefs of those running it. 

Bourgault isn’t the only Democratic donor holding a leadership position at Internews. The majority of the NGO’s board of directors, for example, have also contributed to Democratic campaign committees, according to campaign finance and tax records. Simone Otus Coxe is perhaps the most prolific Democratic donor among Internews’s board members, having given well over a million dollars to Democratic federal campaign committees over the years, with Harris and Biden being some of her biggest beneficiaries. On top of the majority of Internews’s board members, five of the eight executives listed on the nonprofit organization’s tax forms have made contributions to Democratic candidates. 

USAID FEEDS ALUMNI TO LEFT-WING ACTIVIST ORGANIZATIONS

Internews’s leadership’s ties to the Left go beyond donations. 

Board member Richard Kessler is the chairman of his county’s Democratic Party and holds an official position in the Maine Democratic Party, according to his LinkedIn profile. Board member Sonal Shah worked in the Obama White House, on Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, and at the Center for American Progress, one of the largest liberal think tanks in the country. Anna Soellner and Alexander Cole, a board member and an executive, respectively, both served as staffers in Democratic congressional offices. On the media side of things, multiple board members are alumni of left-of-center news outlets such as the Daily Beast, the New York Times, Vice, and Al-Jazeera. 

Those who have led Internews throughout the years are not shy about sharing their beliefs publicly. 

Board member John Montgomery, for instance, shared a poem on social media that accused it of having “used free speech to stifle free speech,” which echoed claims from anti-disinformation activists that free speech is only possible when information deemed false is censored. Matt Chanoff, another board member, has a history of making anti-Trump posts, and board member Chanpreet Arora has signaled support for diversity, equity, and inclusion in media.

Bourgault wrote an essay for the Hill in 2021 that argued that increased funding for her organization’s operations would help sustain “the lifeblood of democracy.” It is unlikely that she will see that kind of cash coming her way from the federal government anytime soon.

Internews did not respond to a request for comment.