Trump and Musk slashing and burning through USAID is unwise - and possibly illegal
For many Americans, the subject of Donald Trump versus the United States Agency for International Development might induce a MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) moment. After all, the agency has no significant domestic role. Its work is obscure, largely unheralded and usually far, far away.
So, this is mostly an inside-the-beltway spitting match between an administration hell-bent on shaking up Washington and an agency offering a lustrous menu of help, financial and otherwise, motivated in part by noble altruism and in part by a mission to spread American methods and values throughout the world.
When I was a media consultant, I worked under contracts issued by IREX and Internews, two prominent media nonprofits that have spread the ideals and practices of good journalism throughout the world for decades. I drew on my five decades of experience in various news organizations, including CNN, Radio Free Europe and USA Today. I retired in 2014, soon after the current, less admirable trends in broadcast news took root.
Most of my work was funded under USAID contracts.
My assignments between 2003 and 2010 included:
Helping a television station in Podgorica, Montenegro, seeking to be the dominant independent news outlet in that emerging Balkan republic. I taught the owners and staff the basics of TV news gathering, production and broadcasting, as well as the professional and ethical principles that guided my profession during my career. The station enjoyed a good run before it was bought and then closed in 2014.
Creating an online news service in Kosovo to provide credible, reliable news scripts for the many mom-and-pop radio stations sprouting in that newly independent state. Last time I checked, KosovaLive was in business.
Teaching TV journalism principles to a small class of young Armenian broadcast news professionals who had won a competition to participate. For five weeks, they attended my class every morning to learn about the basics of how to do TV news the right way. Then they produced stories for a simulated newscast they produced. Some of the stories also ran on mainstream Yerevan television stations. The kids were talented and motivated. After the program, they returned to their stations and used what they had learned about professional practices and ethics in their real jobs (if their bosses let them).
Helping an Albanian entrepreneur start up his 24-hour Albanian language TV news channel called Alsat. I counseled everyone from executives to studio techs on how to get the channel up and running and how to keep it running in terms of news production and business administration. The broadcast center near downtown Tirana was state of the art, but the owner worried more about profits than professionalism (imagine that) and it eventually folded. Nevertheless, the staffers had profited from real-time experience in hands-on news production with lessons that stayed with them long after Alsat closed.
In 2010, creating a sustainable business plan for an Afghan nonprofit organization called the Nai Media Institute. Its mission was to foster professional, independent journalism in Afghanistan, particularly in the surprisingly robust and competitive TV news industry that blossomed after Taliban rule was overthrown. I created a detailed plan for how Nai could survive financially while it provided the Afghan news industry guidance and training to emulate the standards accepted by the world's open societies. It thrived until late January, when it suspended operations without explanation. See Taliban.
So, what's the point? These tasks and thousands like them were funded and supervised by USAID. The goal was simple: Teach accepted principles of journalism in countries where new media were emerging or were in danger of succumbing to the corrupt demands of politicians and oligarchs. Free and open news media — that seemed to be a concept most Americans could embrace.
Now I'm not so sure. The agency fostering those and other American ideals is being hammered and gutted by an administration whose modus operandi seems to be slash and burn.
If the new administration wants to curtail or even dissolve USAID, that's its right. It won the election and its party controls all three branches of government. But there are laws and regulations and court decisions and even — wait for it — the U.S. Constitution that serve as guardrails for such reforms.
Trump and Elon Musk (how did I miss his Senate confirmation hearings?) are bludgeoning their way to their political and ideological goals. In the process, they are battering one institution that promotes the very American principles they claim to cherish.
USAID, like most government programs, is not perfect. In my work, I saw a number of projects that were misguided or even naive. However, I have to believe the bulk of USAID programs around the world made peoples' lives better and enhanced the reputation and appreciation of the United States.
USAID might need some reforms and reorganization, but the current MAGA methods appear harsh and maybe even illegal. It's hard to see which group or institution (Congress? the Supreme Court?) can stop this purge.
The Trump administration could probably achieve its goals at USAID and other agencies if it followed the established rules and laws to reach an outcome to its satisfaction.
But that takes analysis, planning, time and patience. What's going on now at USAID and elsewhere is not reform, not reorganization. It's a regime's tantrum. It's so disturbing. And so unnecessary.
Theodore Iliff is a retired journalist and writer. He lives in Olathe.
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