Why Journalism Matters
Is Elon Musk mounting a takeover of the US government machinery? USAID funding freeze threat to journaism and fighting for investigative reporting in North Macedonia
6 minute read
A coup or state capture? How is Elon Musk assaulting US democracy and why is the press reluctant to raise the alarm?
It’s fair to say that in the three years that I have been writing and publishing WJM, no story of greater import has received such little coverage –or been downplayed more—than the one you are about to read..
The investigation stems from the widely held belief that Elon Musk is staging an assault and takeover of the digital resources of the US government through his role as the director of The Department of Government Efficiency (known as DOGE) set up by an executive order signed by President Trump. Trump has further empowered the initiative by requiring federal agencies to cut staffing levels and restrict new hires.
Although there has been coverage in news outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post there has been little reporting on US television or other broadcast media.
Many prominent experts are describing Musk’s actions as a coup and that his army of young interlopers are intent on subverting the US’s powerful governmental machinery. Some of the leading reporting on Musk’s onslaught has been done by the tech magazine Wired which has carved out an inside track on these developments.
On February 6 they reported on 25-year-old DOGE technologist Marko Elez, recently appointed to work at the US Treasury.
No government experience
“Marko Elez, a 25-year-old DOGE technologist, was recently installed at the Treasury Department as a special government employee. One of a number of young men identified by WIRED who have little to no government experience but are currently associated with DOGE, Elez previously worked for SpaceX, Musk’s space company, and X, Musk’s social media company.
“ Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal inquired about his connections to “a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.
“…Elez was granted privileges including the ability to not just read but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS), an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $US5.45 trillion in fiscal year 2024.
Reporting from Talking Points Memo confirmed that Treasury employees were concerned that Elez had already made “extensive changes” to code within the Treasury system.”
One reporter who has been in the vanguard of raising the alarm about Musk is Carole Cadwalladr of Guardian/Observer who has won multiple awards for her investigative journalism and rose to international prominence in 2018 for her reporting on the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Like many other prominent investigative journalists she now writes a column for Substack. Her condemnation of Musk and his army of cyber invaders is unequivocal as she has made clear in recent Substack posts.
‘It’s a coup’
“Let me say this more clearly: what is happening right now, in America, in real time, is a coup.
“Musk didn’t need a tank, guns, soldiers. He had a small crack cyber unit that he sent into the Treasury department last weekend. He now has unknown quantities of the entire US nation’s most sensitive data and potential backdoors into the system going forward. Treasury officials denied that he had access but it then turned out that he did.
“ If it ended there, it would be catastrophic. But that unit - whose personnel include a 19-year-old called “Big Balls” - is now raiding and scorching the federal government, department by department, scraping its digital assets, stealing its data, taking control of the code and blowing up its administrative apparatus as it goes.
“This is what an unlawful attack on democracy in the digital age looks like. It didn’t take armed men, just Musk’s taskforce of boy-men who may be dweebs and nerds but all the better to plunder the country’s digital resources.”
Silicon valley
She further describes what is happening as a fusing of the power and influence of Silicon Valley with the US state.
A more nuanced if equally alarmed explanation of the situation is presented by Lee Morgenbesser Associate Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University. He says that what is going on is more akin to ‘state capture’ where external forces take over government machinery and put it to work for their own purposes.
Writing on the Conversation website Professor Morgenbesser explains:
“Under the pretence of maximising government efficiency and productivity, DOGE has amassed quite a bit of power. It has:
· penetrated the massive system responsible for virtually all government payments
· breached sensitive databases and private medical records
· circumvented routine conflict of interest and transparency requirements
· dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
· gained access to the computer systems of a number of federal agencies.
State capture refers to : the appropriation of state resources by political actors for their own ends: either private or political.
“By this logic, Musk’s aim could be to capture different pieces of the US government and turn the state into a tool for wealth extraction.
“State capture is a relatively simple but extremely destructive process [and has] played out in countries like Indonesia, Hungary, Nigeria, Russia, Sri Lanka and South Africa (Musk’s birthplace).
“First, political and corporate elites gain control of formal institutions, information systems and bureaucratic policy-making processes.
“Then, they use this power to apply rules selectively, make biased decisions and allocate resources based on private interests (rather than the public good).”
Serious situation
By any reckoning this is a serious situation that is moving at breakneck speed. Musk claims what he is doing is necessary to overhaul an out-of-control federal bureaucracy that is bankrupting the country.
Many of the initiatives appear to violate federal law and at least 70 lawsuits have been brought against them and some judicial rulings have apparently stopped DOGE from interfering with the US Treasury, prompting Musk to call for the impeachment of judges, highlighting ongoing conflict between the Trump administration and the judiciary.
However, despite his rampaging approach Trump has also said that he would comply with court rulings but appeal those that go against his initiatives to root out waste and corruption. It remains to be seen what that dissclaimer will mean in practice.
Acccording to research done by the Washington post several federal laws appear to have have been violatedf. They cite ‘more than two dozen current and former officials, one audio recording, and several internal messages’ obtained by the outlet.
“So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they’re playing a quantity game and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once,” David Super, an administrative law professor at Georgetown Law School told The Post.
Although it may sound like stating the obvious, this development shows that you can never take for granted the exercise of a free, inquiring and fearless press (not to mention an independent judiciary) in preserving democracy and our way of life. Even in the world’s most powerful ‘free’ nation.
Reference
The Conversation: Musk and state capture
4 minute read
USAID cuts represent a direct and immediate threat to non-profit investigative journalism around the world
The impact of the sudden cut in funding by USAID—America’s main overseas aid agency--has raised alarms at the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) over the future of non-profit investigative journalism.
The GIJN, based in Washington, is the main protector and promoter of investigative and watchdog journalism on the world stage.
GIJN’s senior reporter Rowan Philp has outlined the suddenness and severity of the threats faced by the sector.
He begins by explaining the scope of the USAID funding cuts orchestrated by Trump by way of Musk and his cyber army.
He writes: “The sudden hold on USAID foreign assistance funding by the US Trump administration has frozen an estimated $268 million in agreed grants for independent media and the free flow of information in more than 30 countries, including several under repressive regimes… throwing much of the nonprofit watchdog sector into crisis, and potentially leaving numerous reporters, contractors, and accountability projects without pay in the weeks ahead.
“ This is in addition to devastating cuts to the agency’s public health and humanitarian programmes around the world. Despite ongoing confusion and many legal challenges, several media grantees and experts told GIJN they regard this important funding as dead.”
Philp also warns about the data leaks that are likely to result which could expose journalists, human rights defenders and others to danger and intimidation.
“The ransacking of USAID systems by unaccountable private sector agents poses an urgent data security threat to journalists, according to development experts. They have warned that contact details of thousands of human rights defenders, media support actors, and journalists involved in US-funded projects in the past decades, as well as information on what they do and how they work, has fallen into hostile hands.”
Further, social media attacks orchestrated by the US administration on those who benefit from this funding (and other related officials)has opened up the prospect of new personal threats against them and possible criminal investigations by those who want to suppress critical reporting of what they do.
“The USAID freeze and accompanying US administration social media attacks on officials and beneficiaries has fueled new threats and proposed criminal investigations by enemies of independent media in repressive regimes. It has also amplified public smears against courageous networks holding bad actors accountable in the public interest.”
And the final threat outlined is the way future funding from alternative sources may also be adversely affected.
“The freeze further disrupts an already fractured sustainability environment in which some funders have slowly exited the sector, and in which policy changes at major social media and tech companies have suppressed distribution, promoted misinformation, and enabled harassment of independent media and its sources. The risk of self-censorship to lure future funding is yet another allied threat in this bully landscape.”
The threats are grave and immediate and many are focused on exiled outlets and independent media in countries such as Ukraine and Cameroon and thoughout Central America.
Some of the gravest immediate threats are being faced by exiled outlets and independent media in places such as Ukraine, Cameroon, and throughout Central America.
As Philp writes: “For example, Ukraine’s Slidstvo.info, an award-winning independent investigative agency, lost 80% of its funding in a single day in January, as its two respected intermediary funders reportedly confessed their own shock, and reluctantly but firmly warned the organization to immediately halt operations on the USAID money they disburse — including any use of grant money already in the outlet’s account.”
The abrupt nature of the cuts has also put reporters’ safety in jeopardy, particularly in countries with already heightened risks like El Salvador and Guatemala.
“This was without any warning, so people working in difficult environments like Ecuador — people with teams and families, who are risking their lives to uncover money laundering, human trafficking; illegal exports — all of a sudden they have no funding,” explains Maria Teresa Ronderos, co-founder of the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (El CLIP).
She added: “The worst thing for my friends and partners is that this has given a lot of force to the local enemies of media, whether government or organized crime.
“Some countries are proposing to investigate the media who were receiving money from USAID, because [they say] ‘even the US government is saying they are propagandists or spies or terrorists.’”
(Click on the link below to look at what future funding for investigative media might look like.)
Reference
GIJN Report on USAID funding cuts for independent media
4 minute read
How a female-run outlet is transforming investigative journalism in North Macedonia
Like in other countries in the Balkans, North Macedonia is not an easy place to be an investigative journalist.
Although the environment for press freedom has improved over recent years, there continues to be official hostility to the press and a lack of trust in the news media by the public.
In their country summary Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) comments: “Although journalists do not work in a hostile environment, widespread disinformation and a lack of professionalism contribute to the decline of society's trust in the media, which exposes independent outlets to threats and attacks. Furthermore, government officials tend to have poor and demeaning attitudes towards journalists.”
This situation is enabled by the cosy relationship between the country’s business and political elites. Also the main media outlets either are not interested in, or can’t afford, journalistic investigations. This means that corruption can continue to thrive. North Macedonia remains at a low of 76 out of 180 on Transparency International’s Corruptions Perception index.
But, despite the challenges, an innovative non-profit investigative journalistic outlet, the Investigative Reporting Lab (IRL) directed by an all female management board is breaking new ground in exposing wrongdoing.
Impressive achievement
Their most impressive achievement so far revolves around their investigation into a fire in September 2021 that broke out in a temporary health facility for COVID-19 patients in Tetovo, a small city in North Macedonia. Without warning, the fire spread rapidly and claimed the lives of 14 people — 12 patients and two visiting relatives.
The government said the hospital had been built to ‘required standards’ but a seven-month investigation by IRL revealed a government conspiracy and cover-up into loopholes for bypassing safety regulations.
Because North Macedonia lacked the infrastructure to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, the health minister oversaw the hasty construction of 19 temporary health facilities, or modular hospitals — using inferior and highly flammable materials.
The investigation resulted in a film documentary (Murder in Tetovo) which examined the events surrounding the fire identified ‘corruption, a sabotaged investigation, and a single cable’ as the ‘final culprits’ of the accident.
The film also reveals that the government ‘intentionally sabotaged’ a forensic investigation into the fire that clearly revealed government officials were aware of the substandard construction of these modular hospitals.
Award finalist
Murder in Tetovo is a finalist for the prestgious DIG award for investigative documentaries which will be judged later in the year in Modena, Italy.
IRL was set up in 2017 with support of the Organised Crime and Corruption Project which has a good understanding of what is required for investigative journalism to survive.
“Politics in places like Macedonia are a blood sport, and corrupt politicians, crime figures, and oligarchs — who are the people who really run these countries — don’t like people going around telling the truth,” explained OCCRP’s publisher and co-founder Drew Sullivan. “IRL is a creative, clever organisation grounded in serious investigative reporting with an ability to reach audiences in ways others cannot. That’s a recipe for being under constant pressure and stress, getting surveilled and facing regular hostility.”
Funding for OCCRP and its members is now seriously impacted by the Trump regime attempts to shut down USAID payments around the world. (See previous story.)
The OCCRP was forced to lose the services of 43 valued reporters and staff, according to Drew Sullivan, after losing 29% of its total funding due to the USAID freeze.
Reference
GIJN report on Independent Reporting Lab
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