Emergence of the Grant-Funded Journalism
Professionals writing on contract are called copy-writers. Professionals writing for others e.g. biographies are called ghost writers. But these remain behind the scene. Their names remain hidden.Often there is a ‘Non-Disclosure Agreement’ to keep the transaction a secret and identity hidden. But now there is emergence of a new type of writers. They write in their own name but to support or oppose a cause which may include a political or ideological cause. Yet these writers call themselves as ‘Journalists’. They are not. An ex-minister in Government of India had called them ‘Presstitudes.’ There is no need to explain the term in detail.
There have been documented admission of many such activists masquerading as journalist or researcher or author or expert. One may read a long series I have written about Meera Nanda She is anti-Hindu activist who secretly admire a branch of Hinduism itself and want to impose that while being funded by evangelicals.
The oldest and most honest and detailed account is Upton Sinclair, who wrote “The Brass Check” in 1919 about how newspapers paid writers to reach predetermined conclusions. The brass check was the consideration paid to a prostitute for her services.
David Horowitz, was a radical left activist in the 1960s and turned sharply right. His memoir “Radical Son” describes how activists convince themselves that their conclusions are arrived at independently when the funding and the conclusion always align.
Jayson Blair’s “Burning Down My Master’s House” is about fabrication at the New York Times rather than ideological contract writing, but the psychological self-justification he describes is identical.
In India, Madhu Kishwar has written extensively about how the NGO and grant ecosystem produces such writing. Writers who genuinely believe they are independent while being structurally dependent on funders whose political preferences their work consistently serves. She calls it the NGO-journalist complex. Her critique of NGO-funded journalism is structural, not autobiographical. She never wrote as a paid activist because she deliberately avoided that position.
Tavleen Singh has also hinted about it in her work called ‘Durbar’ but she stopped short of naming it.
Recently Washington Post admitted to have a editorial policy which will border on this paid activism. It came into picture when official circular was issued to depart from earlier policy. Read about it here.
The point is that this cult of paid writers is not new but their proliferation is new. It has become such a norm that it is hard to find any writing which is not sponsored. On top of it, many do is shamelessly and without even claiming to be giving neutral opinion or analysis. This motivated me to start writing my ‘Epistemological Biography’. And as stated at many places, I do not get paid for my writing. In fact, I do not earn anything from my writing except the royalties from the sale of books which is negligible for past few years since I have been placed in shadowban by Amazon after I wrote a book about ‘Sanatana Dharma’.
Chicken and Egg Problem
The truth is that most such writers do not perceive themselves as hired guns. They seek out funders who already share their views. The money follows the conviction, or appears to. Whether the conviction preceded the money or was shaped by knowing where the money flows is the question none of them can answer honestly.
They often flip sides. But they remain convinced of the cause they sponsor. In India there is a great deal of such shift after 2014. The conviction has not changed. Only its object has changed.
Therefore it is difficult to pin point whether funding motivated a writer or journalist or activist or the ideology sought the funding to write or act.
Himalmag.com
In 2026, himalmag.com (Himal Southasian) presented as an example of funded activists. Interesting thing is that they flaunt their source of funding as a proof of honesty. This so unlike the website like thewire.in which claim to be crowd funded but without uploading any data thereof. This makes us skeptical of their claim. But himalmag.com gives details of its funding by Open Society on its about page itself. Let me explain how it is connected to its writings.
Rabid Absurdity
India is the only country which has an ocean named after it. Indian Ocean or Hind Mahasagar. Will you like to rename it? What will you call it Sri Lanka’s Ocean? The logic of the name is that India was and still is so big and stretches so far that no other name appear suitable. But look at the absurdity of the founder of himalmag.com:
“WHEN I ASK DIXIT, who started Himal in 1988 from New York and moved it to Nepal in 1990, how he feels about the magazine’s recent relocation across the Indian subcontinent, he quickly interrupts me. “To begin, don’t call it the ‘Indian subcontinent,’ call it the ‘subcontinent.’ That is exactly what we are trying to do: subvert the narrative from a journalistic platform.”
Historically, India referred to the people of the Indus river, not a boundaried country. “The historical term ‘India’ got hijacked by the nation-state,” Dixit says.
Soon the Dixit will like to call Indian Ocean as Subcontinent Ocean. This is classic example of an activist making the conclusion prior to the argument. himalmag.com is a website in support of every force inimical to India. Be it Pakistan, Rohingya or Taliban. Though I wonder what they have to say about the war happening between Pakistan and Taliban.
Himal Southasian’s own About page states explicitly: “Himal Southasian is currently supported by funding from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Nepal and Open Society Foundations.
Open Society is a front of George Soros who came to notoriety after his speech at Davos on 23 January 2020 where he said:
The biggest and most frightening setback occurred in India where a democratically elected Narendra Modi is creating a Hindu nationalist state, imposing punitive measures on Kashmir, a semi-autonomous Muslim region, and threatening to deprive millions of Muslims of their citizenship.
The same pattern of delivering conclusion without any argument or evidence. He created an entire Muslim population of India as victims.
Manufactured Victimhood
The writer activism is the epistemological pandemic of mind. Writing used to discuss and debate. Now it is a tool to debase and demean people. It is an incitement to destroy something unrelated. It is weaponised to incite violence and to invent victim-hood.
Writing began as a technology for extending thought, for thinking in public, for arriving at truth through friction with other minds. Debate required you to understand the opposing position well enough to argue against it honestly. That discipline was the epistemological immune system.
Activist writing broke that discipline first by making the conclusion prior to the argument.
Raza Rumi’s piece on Dhurandhar is not addressed to someone who might be convinced. It is addressed to someone who is already charged, to confirm their charge and give it a target. The film is not being reviewed. It is being designated. Muslims are made victims of something which has nothing to do with them.
A genuine victim has standing to demand remedy. Manufactured victimhood is a weapon that creates standing from nothing, and once the victimhood is established in the discourse, anything done in its name becomes defensible. The charge justifies the incitement. The incitement justifies the violence. The violence confirms the victimhood. The loop is closed.
What broke writing as a truth-seeking technology is precisely that this loop is more emotionally satisfying and more financially rewarded than honest inquiry. The epistemological pandemic spreads because it offers something genuine thinking cannot. It gives certainty, community, and a common enemy.
Dangerous activism
It is one thing to have a political or ideological leaning but to be ideologically charged is another thing. A charged person is disconnected with actuality. He or she lives in a reality of his/her own creation.
A leaning is a starting point. It shapes which questions you ask, which stories you find interesting, which injustices feel urgent. Every serious writer has one and the honest ones acknowledge it. Rumi having a leaning toward Pakistani dignity or Muslim representation is not the problem.
The charge is different. A charged person has stopped asking questions and started confirming answers. The leaning has calcified into a closed system. New evidence does not update the model. It is either absorbed as confirmation or rejected as propaganda.
The Charge
This makes such view something more than a bias. This is what activism is. It is aimed at motivating people to act not to think. A writing inciting to act is not an intellectual exercise. It is a propaganda arm of a political battle.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister has not seen the aircraft wreckage but knows six were shot down because social media says so. Rumi is operating in the same epistemological condition as the society he is defending. He has not seen the film but he is confident that it is propaganda. The structure of the reasoning is identical. Both are charged, not merely leaning.
Now Rumi has convinced me to watch Dhurandhar. I was not prepared to spend four hours in a theatre but now I may.
That is the problem. Activism is a double edge sword. Reviewers like Rumi and Sherwani made the Dhurandhar an unprecedented success. Will they ensure it for the Dhurandhar: Revenge too?
Reference:
- Speech at Davos: https://georgesoros.com/2020/01/23/remarks-delivered-at-the-world-economic-forum-3/
- Soros committed on billion for opens society in above speech. This is an extract: “…To demonstrate our commitment to OSUN, we are contributing one billion dollars to it. But we can’t build a global network on our own; we will need partner institutions and supporters from all around the world to join us in this enterprise. We are looking for farsighted partners who feel a responsibility for the future of our civilization, people who are inspired by the goals of OSUN and want to participate in its design and realization….”
- Himal Southasian mentions its source of funding at its about page: https://www.himalmag.com/about-himal
- Extract from himamag.com about page: “Himal Southasian is supported by the International Fund for Public Interest Media, the Open Society Foundations, Report for the World and our Patron programme. Our funders have no influence over the editorial direction or output of Himal Southasian.”