Online smear campaigns against media aren’t new. Challenging it has never been more urgent

The ‘foreign agent’ label against journalists is an old playbook – especially in Asia. But in 2025, it found new reach, spreading across major social media platforms and going virtually unchallenged. 

In the final part of our series on media funding, foreign aid, and sustainability, independent journalist Nica Hanopol speaks with fellow reporters Azreen Madzlan from Malaysiakini, John Hurt Allauigan from PressOnePH, and Francis Allan Angelo from Daily Guardian about their investigation of an online smear campaign against USAID and the media and civil society organizations it funded. 

Read the cross-border investigation here.

Follow the companion reports here: 

DailyGuardian

Philstar 

Malaysiakini

PressOne.PH

🎧 Watch the video version on YouTube

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