Journalism as a function, not a sector
Across bilateral donors, multilateral programmes, and philanthropic foundations, funding for transparency and accountability has grown considerably, particularly as new entrants – from tech philanthropy to development finance institutions – have moved into governance alongside established bilateral and multilateral donors. Within these programmes, donors are rarely looking to fund “journalism” as a sector. They are looking to fund outcomes:
- exposure of corruption
- scrutiny of public spending
- improved access to public information
- informed citizen participation
Journalism contributes directly to all of these. This is particularly visible across West Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia, where governance funding often outweighs media-specific funding in scale and duration.
A useful shift, then, is to move from asking:
Who funds journalism?
to asking:
Who funds the outcomes journalism produces?
Where the money actually sits
If you start from outcomes rather than labels, several funding clusters become more visible.
Anti-corruption and integrity
Large governance programmes – often funded by bilateral donors or development banks – frequently include components on procurement transparency, illicit finance, and public spending. Investigative reporting fits naturally here, often as part of broader accountability efforts.
Access to information and open government
With the expansion of right-to-information laws and open data initiatives, funding has grown around making public information usable. This includes data-driven reporting and work that bridges journalism and civic technology – particularly relevant as the Open Government Partnership has expanded its membership across the global majority.
Civic space and participation
In contexts where civic space is under pressure, funding often focuses on strengthening citizen oversight and engagement. Journalism – especially at the local level – plays a key role in connecting communities to decision-making processes.
Digital transparency and information ecosystems
An emerging area is funding around platform accountability, information integrity, and digital public space. Here, investigative and explanatory reporting often sits alongside research and advocacy.
Why this matters now
Two shifts make this reframing more pressing than before.
First, media-specific funding is tightening. Dedicated journalism calls remain important, but they are often highly competitive and limited in scope.
Second, governance and accountability funding, while not immune to the broader aid pressures facing major bilateral donors, has attracted new entrants – including private foundations and development finance institutions – that have expanded the overall pool. These programmes tend to operate with larger budgets, broader eligibility criteria, and longer timelines than journalism-specific grants.
For practitioners, this creates a familiar imbalance:
- journalism calls → visible, but saturated
- governance calls → less visible, but often less crowded
For media development organisations, the shift is more structural. Many of these funding streams are not accessed through open calls, but through large programmes, consortia, and intermediaries. This is where journalism is often integrated – sometimes explicitly, often implicitly – into wider accountability efforts.
Where media development organisations fit
For media development organisations, this is less about accessing individual calls and more about how programmes are designed and who gets to participate in designing them.
Large international organisations often enter governance and accountability programmes as lead implementers or consortium partners. In this role, they shape how journalism is included – through capacity building, regranting, or partnerships with media actors.
But this is only part of the picture. Smaller and global majority organisations – whether media outlets or local support organisations – are often positioned further downstream. They may depend on these same programmes for access, working through intermediaries or as local partners, while navigating tighter constraints on funding and visibility.
The reframing still applies – but unevenly. For some, it opens access to new funding streams. For others, it highlights how funding flows are structured and where entry points are realistically available.
A note of caution: alignment is not automatic
This is not a universal shortcut. Not all transparency or governance funding is compatible with independent journalism. Some programmes are tightly structured or politically sensitive, leaving limited room for editorial independence.
There are also real risks:
- Instrumentalisation: Journalism absorbed into a governance programme can become a delivery mechanism for donor objectives rather than a watchdog function. The editorial independence that gives investigative reporting its credibility is also what makes it difficult to fit into project logframes with predetermined outputs.
- Scope drift: When funding is tied to specific thematic priorities – anti-corruption in extractives, say, or procurement in health – newsrooms may find their coverage narrowing in ways that serve funders more than audiences.
- Projectisation: Sustained accountability journalism requires continuity. Grant-funded “projects” often have fixed timelines, defined deliverables, and limited tolerance for the open-ended nature of investigations. This tension is manageable but needs active negotiation.
- Exclusion by design: Particularly for smaller or local organisations, inclusion in large programmes can mean inclusion in name only – listed as partners, but without meaningful influence over how the work is defined or evaluated.
The goal is not to reshape journalism to fit donor language. It is to recognise where existing work already aligns, and to be clear about where it does not.
Practical entry points
For organisations looking to explore this space, a few starting points stand out.
Translate your work into outcomes language
The work does not change – but how it is described does.
- investigative reporting → anti-corruption oversight
- budget coverage → public financial accountability
- local reporting → citizen engagement
Partner beyond the media sector
Governance funding is often structured for consortia. This may include civil society organisations, legal actors, or civic tech groups, with journalism as one component.
Follow the intermediaries
A significant share of this funding is channelled through international NGOs, large programmes, and regranting mechanisms. Understanding who sits in between is often key to accessing it.
Be realistic about entry points
Not every organisation will access these funds directly. For many, the path runs through partnerships, subgrants, or collaborative projects.
A quiet shift, not a new direction
For many organisations, this is not about changing what you do. It is about recognising that the same work – investigating, reporting, connecting information to the public – already sits at the heart of broader transparency and accountability agendas.
And in a crowded funding landscape, that recognition can make the difference between chasing the same calls as everyone else – and finding where your work already fits.
In practice: where journalism fits into accountability funding
Investigative journalism within anti-corruption ecosystems (West Africa)
The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), formerly the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), is a West African media innovation and development think tank that illustrates how journalism organisations can operate across multiple funding streams simultaneously. Alongside investigative reporting, CJID runs UDEME, a social accountability platform designed to hold the Nigerian government accountable for funds released for developmental projects – covering capital, constituency, and ecological projects that make up roughly 40% of Nigeria’s annual budgets.
UDEME operates at the national and state levels, tracking how released funds are spent through fieldwork and public dissemination. This kind of work has attracted governance and anti-corruption funding – not only media-specific grants – because it directly contributes to procurement transparency and public oversight.
Journalism and civic technology within open government funding (Latin America)
In Mexico, SocialTIC – a digital rights and civic technology organisation – has worked at the intersection of open data, journalism, and citizen participation, including on projects linked to the Open Government Partnership. Collaborations with journalists and media organisations to make public data usable for accountability purposes sit within a broader remit that includes digital rights advocacy and civic technology development. The example illustrates how reporting functions are often embedded within wider transparency programmes, alongside – rather than separately from – other civil society actors.
For organisations looking to work in this space, identifying the civic technology and open government actors already embedded in these programmes is often a more practical starting point than approaching donors directly.
For those ready to dive deeper, explore more resources in the MediaDev Fundraising Guide. Did you find an error or something in need of an update in this article? Please do let us know by contacting us at communications@gfmd.info. Are you a donor? Would you like to update us on your grants and programmes or add you to this article? Please get in touch!