New Data Shows Resilience of Newsrooms in the Global South through Partnership with the International Fund

2025 proved to be one of the toughest years on record for newsrooms, with dramatic cuts to international financial support and political headwinds being felt acutely. The data signals that funding has had a stabilising effect: Measured since the start of grants (17 months on average), nearly three quarters of news outlets supported by the Fund (72%) have been able to grow their non-grant revenue by an average of 26%. Newsrooms used flexible grant support to innovate, collaborate, grow audiences and develop new income streams. 

The data were among the updates presented in the International Fund’s 2025 Annual report, launched today. The report also charted a new high point in audiences relying on the media organisations supported by the Fund, with media outlets across 34 countries reaching nearly 170 million people per month, an upward trend signaling that audiences value local, reliable journalism about the issues that affect them. While general trends signal that news consumption is contracting , 75% of the grantee media organisations had grown their audiences since they began to implement strategies with flexible grant funding. 

The report also shows the societal impact that independent media are having. With mis- and disinformation threatening access to trustworthy information in countries across the globe, newsrooms in Moldova responded to intense electoral interference and disinformation campaigns, and played a critical role in informing voters with reliable information. Media helped citizens hold government officials to account following devastating flooding in Brazil. They exposed government and financial sector corruption in Lebanon. And they reached communities in Ukraine with content to inspire and to counter war news fatigue, among numerous other examples shared in the report.

The International Fund expanded its support in 2025, making 48 new grants to media outlets, and bringing its  total to 144 media outlets supported across four focus regions: Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. 

“We need to see public interest journalism for what it is; a global public good on par with clean water or stable infrastructure, essential for democratic societies to thrive,” said Nishant Lalwani, CEO of the International Fund. “At a time when disinformation is surging, support for independent media is a cost-effective investment to protect access to reliable facts and information. The data in this report shows how core, flexible funding to news outlets consistently helps grow their reach and their revenues.” he said.

2025 was a year in which the International Fund built high-level political will to protect information integrity, and incentivised fairer value exchanges between platforms and publishers in the Global South. At the International Conference on Independent Media and Information Integrity in October of 2025, Heads of State and high-level government officials committed to collective action to defend public interest media. Thirty-four governments signed on to the Paris Declaration on Multilateral Action for Information Integrity and Independent Media, an agreement that calls for collective action to counter the threat of disinformation and to safeguard information integrity. The conference was chaired by President Macron, with the Presidents of Ghana and Moldova speaking forcefully about the importance of independent media to protect democracies.

Through the CTRL+J initiative, the International Fund worked with local partners to convene a series of conferences that brought together a broad range of actors - from journalists and media experts to technologists and policymakers - from across the Global South. Through these events, participants examined the growing challenges facing journalism amid technological upheaval, and identified solutions and opportunities to build common agendas. The discussions also focused on paths towards a fair value exchange between media outlets and the tech companies that rely on their content.

The International Fund’s 2026–2028 strategy focuses on three priorities: sustaining journalism through new financing solutions, ensuring a plurality of public interest journalism reaches and serves audiences in the age of disinformation, and securing the future of reliable information amid rapid technological change.

To read the full 2025 Annual Report, please visit ifp.im/2025

Media contact: rvanek@ifpim.org