New Delhi:

Billionaire and head of the newly created US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk, along with US President Donald Trump, has taken on the legacy media houses in the US. The attempt to discredit the legacy media is being channelled through X.com, the social media platform owned by Musk and Truth Social where the President usually posts.

In the most recent attack, Musk and Trump trained their guns on the reputed news agency Reuters.

Reuters received far more money than this from US government organizations, but via various subsidiaries and intermediaries to hide how they were getting it.

This is just what @DOGE has found so far. pic.twitter.com/PXbL1OkEKO

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2025

 
Earlier, Musk had alleged that Reuters had been paid $9 million by the Biden administration for “large-scale social deception”.

Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for “large scale social deception”.

That is literally what it says on the purchase order! They’re a total scam.

Just wow. https://t.co/GGxoVQSwN8

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2025

Reuters responded to Musk’s post saying the contract was “inaccurately represented.” It clarified that the contract was awarded to Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS), a division separate from the news agency. The news agency also carried a clarification by Spokesperson Tabatha Thompson of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is the R&D arm of the US military. DARPA had funded the contract in question. Thompson was quoted by Reuters as saying – “Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS) was competitively selected to serve as the evaluator to test the defensive tools. … They (Thomson Reuters) assessed the effectiveness of our defensive tools.”

The US government website www.usaspending.gov lists the contracts from different government agencies to different vendors. A cumulative search on the site shows that different arms of Reuters received `140 million in funding since 2008. 

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

(Funding for Thomson Reuters from US govt agencies yearwise)

In the past week, Elon Musk has been targeting a number of publications as his DOGE team raided the offices of USAID in an effort to uncover wasteful and fraudulent spending.

Associated Press

The US government site www.usaspending.gov shows that the US government spent over half a million dollars on the Associated Press. These payouts have been promptly terminated by the DOGE.

Politico

DOGE has alleged that space agency NASA spent $500,000 on subscriptions to Politico.

Photo Credit: Screenshots of funding for AP: Source: www.usaspending.gov

NASA subsequently cancelled the enormous subscriptions for Politico.
 

NASA leadership has verified that this was cancelled today. https://t.co/wSqWOFtHeT

— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 5, 2025

 Other government departments have spent $32 million on Politico.

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

 

Politico got $32 million in funding from the United States government.

Funding for Politico from US government agencies yearwise.
Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

The New York Times

Elon Musk called the New York Times “government-funded media” on X.com in response to another post

Photo Credit: Image posted on X by @elonmusk

One of the most venerated names in the world when it comes to journalism, the New York Times has received at least $2.6 million in funding from various agencies of the US government between fiscal years 2008 to 2024.

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Funding for NYT from US govt agencies yearwise
Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

BBC

Another household name and go-to media house – the BBC – received funding to the tune of 2.6 million pounds sterling, equivalent to $3.2 million from USAID.

The BBC thanks its donor USAID for the generous $3.2 million in funding
Photo Credit: BBC.com

The yearwise spending on the BBC by USAID and other agencies of the US government appears to have stopped in 2011 as per the US government site www.usaspending.gov , but the BBC website currently thanks the USAID for being one of its most generous donors.

Funding for NYT from US govt agencies yearwise
Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Internews

Elon Musk has been reposting about Internews – an agency that trains “journalists, and digital rights activists, advance internet freedom and offer business expertise to help media outlets become financially viable.”

Internews has received $404 million since 2008.  

Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Internews funding from US government agencies yearwise
Photo Credit: www.usaspending.gov

Internews funds individual journalists and media outlets in over 100 countries, including in India.

Internews claims to have reached 75,000 people in India – including journalists, activists, students of schools and colleges as well as villagers in remote parts of the country.

During the last quarter of 2024, Netflix pulled a larger audience in the UK than BBC One, becoming the country’s most popular TV service. Across its entire portfolio, the BBC remains the UK’s favourite news and entertainment destination, but this is nonetheless a significant milestone for a US-based streamer. After all, Netflix was a service that sent DVDs through the post in California a couple of decades ago.

I have researched TV in the streaming era and the issue for national broadcasters is that streaming is a global industry. That is to say, content produced locally benefits operations globally – subscribers in country A benefit from content produced primarily for viewers in country B. As such, there are mutual gains from subscriber growth in either territory, since that provides an incentive for a platform to increase content in either location.

And as Netflix grows, so too does its value to viewers. This model constitutes a considerable competitive advantage for it and other platforms that stream content across borders.

Without Hollywood films and TV series, Netflix would be a fringe player in the US market, but this content also appeals to subscribers around the world. The same applies to Korean programmes, which serve a demanding local audience and have also proved popular worldwide. In mid-January, Netflix’s most viewed shows in the UK were a mix of US and Korean programmes, including the second season of Squid Game.

Netflix is savvy at making content circulate across continents, using its huge library to its advantage. Its scale gives it an unassailable edge over local rivals.

This strategy is centred on content portability and was explained by Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, who said: “We’re not trying to make more Hollywood content for the world, we’re trying to make content from anywhere in the world to the rest of the world.”

In fact, Netflix has both Hollywood and non English-language content. But in any event, the platform never competes on a level playing field with local services and whenever it enters a market it does so with the benefit of a library built for other territories.

Netflix and the other streaming giants are reshaping media systems across Europe. An audience survey in four European countries (Denmark, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) of 1,813 respondents aged between 16 and 34 revealed that Netflix was by far the most popular destination for long-form content such as films. The survey also confirmed that Netflix, alongside Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, were the most watched streaming services in these four countries.

THE STRUGGLE FOR BROADCASTERS

As a result of this renewed competition, Europe’s commercial broadcasters are struggling for advertisers, viewers and investors. My calculations show that at the end of 2024, the collective market capitalisation of Europe’s largest commercial broadcasters in the region’s five biggest markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK), plus the Nordic countries, was just 5.6% that of Netflix (US$14.2 billion (£11.5 billion) versus US$252.5 billion).

Navigating this global system is equally challenging for public service media like the BBC. They too are losing audiences, particularly young viewers, to streaming services. Historically, the EU and the UK have been good at protecting their film and TV production sectors.

An EU directive, for example, stipulates that streaming services must “secure at least a 30% share of European works in their catalogues” and ensure that content is prominently available. In the future, the EU and UK may have need to strengthen their support for public service media as well.

Netflix has invested billions in UK-produced content, including Black Doves starring Keira Knightley. Ludovic Robert/Netflix

But Netflix is fond of European content anyway, and is investing billions of dollars in the region. For the first time in 2024, the service was spending more on international content than US programming (US$7.9 billion versus US$7.5 billion). And, in the UK alone, Netflix has invested more than US$6 billion since 2020.

While on the face of it this investment is a coup for domestic creative industries, the issue is that it remains a US-based service that decides which stories are told, and how. Netflix is interested in indigenous content, but during the production process its commissioners shape these stories with a transnational audience in mind.

As such, the local stories that Netflix selects in the UK and elsewhere are not necessarily those that a public service broadcaster would choose to tell. What’s more, the UK has no control over the ownership of these platforms and, depending on whose hands they fall into, this may prove an issue in the future.

Public service media, including the BBC, are instruments of national self-representation, which reflect a country’s idiosyncrasies, its mood and its strengths and weaknesses better than any other platform. It is an ability and a privilege the UK must retain.

(Author: Jean Chalaby, Professor of Sociology, City St George’s, University of London)

(Disclosure Statement: Jean Chalaby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)