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Outlet profile

The New Humanitarian

international center-left, humanitarian-sector focus

Owned byThe New Humanitarian, an independent nonprofit association incorporated in Switzerland (formerly part of the United Nations)
FundingGrants from foundations (including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and New Venture Fund) and government aid departments (Canada, Norway, Netherlands); supplemented by a reader membership program; no advertising revenue
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The outlet traces its roots to IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), created in 1995 by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. IRIN operated as a free UN news wire—first out of Nairobi, then expanding globally—designed to improve information flow during humanitarian emergencies. In January 2015, IRIN separated from the UN and re-registered as an independent Swiss nonprofit headquartered in Geneva, explicitly to gain editorial freedom to scrutinize the aid industry it had once been embedded in. On March 21, 2019, it rebranded as The New Humanitarian to signal a broader editorial mission. Funding shifted to a mixed model: roughly half from foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Open Society Foundations, and half from government aid departments in Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands, with multi-year grants replacing earlier project-by-project funding. Media Bias/Fact Check rates it left-center; Biasly rates it somewhat conservative—reflecting a tension between its structural ties to the liberal international aid establishment and its accountability reporting on aid-sector failures. Its editorial record includes investigations into misconduct, waste, and mismanagement within major humanitarian organizations. Since the second Trump administration took office in January 2025, the outlet has devoted substantial coverage to the USAID shutdown and U.S. aid cuts, emphasizing clinic closures, rising mortality, and disrupted programs—coverage that is critical in tone toward the administration's humanitarian policy.

Sources

  1. The New Humanitarian – Wikipedia
  2. Our history | The New Humanitarian
  3. IRIN becomes The New Humanitarian | Genève internationale
  4. Q&A with the Humanitarian News Outlet formerly known as IRIN | Humanitarian News Research Network
  5. TNH – The New Humanitarian (formerly IRIN News) – ecoi.net
  6. The New Humanitarian Expands Its Investigations into the Aid Sector | GIJN
  7. The New Humanitarian – Bias and Credibility | Media Bias/Fact Check
  8. 2026 humanitarian aid policy trends | The New Humanitarian

Profile compiled 2026-08-23; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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