4/5/22, 3:23 PM Hate speech, atrocities and fake news: the crisis in Myanmar | Financial Times Myanmar troops on exercises in the Irrawaddy Delta in February © Getty In recent months, the National Endowment for Democracy, one of The Irrawaddy’s biggest foreign donors, has faced questions from human rights groups and journalists over whether it will continue its grants of more than $100,000 a year, while Soros’s Open Society Foundations have privately raised concerns over the cartoons with The Irrawaddy’s staff. Others speculate that Myanmar’s independent media may be moving away from the donor-funded model to a more commercial one, necessitating a change in tone to curry favour with Burmese businessmen known as “the cronies”. “They probably feel that in order to survive, they need to make their peace with local business interests, and that may explain some of the stuff they are publishing right now,” said Jason Nelson, a Canadian journalist who formerly worked for The Irrawaddy in Thailand. Kyaw Zwa Moe rejects this, asserting that The Irrawaddy has been “critical of those in power without favour or fear” and noting that nationalists have targeted both the publication and individual reporters. “No matter who our donors/sponsors/advertisers are, we have never compromised our editorial policy and independent journalism,” he told me. “Neither will we do so in future.” The growing blowback against legitimate newsgathering in Myanmar has affected The Irrawaddy as well as other publications. One of its reporters was arrested last June in the Shan state and held for two months. Another was accosted in December by a group of villagers in northern Rakhine and interrogated by police officers for several hours. The Irrawaddy has joined foreign media in criticising the detention of the two Reuters reporters. “All journalists here are under threat in a way when it comes to covering all sensitive issues,” Kyaw Zwa Moe said. https://www.ft.com/content/2003d54e-169a-11e8-9376-4a6390addb44 14/19