"We will offer to meet the costs necessary to survive libel claims and to deter autocrats and oligarchs," USAID Director Samantha Power, herself a former reporter, said in a statement. speech in Washington.
She said the authoritarian powers were increasingly resorting to these "crude but effective tactics" by multiplying complaints to ruin the independent media and to nip information they did not want to see reported.
"As autocrats become more and more astute in their desire to control and manipulate people, we must help support a free and balanced world press to hold leaders to account," added the former US Ambassador. United at the UN.
She did not detail the operation of this new "fund" set up by the government of President Joe Biden, and did not specify whether it would also support journalists in countries allied with Washington.
The US president is due to organize a virtual summit for democracy next month, one of his foreign policy priorities, to create a united front against "autocracies", led by China.
A meeting that is meant to be a break with his predecessor Donald Trump, who regularly flirted with authoritarian leaders.
© 2021 AFP