As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) – the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda – he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration.

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In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the state broadcaster RT described it as an “awesome decision”. The Global Times, an English-language Chinese state media publication, crowed that the broadcasters had been discarded by the White House “like a dirty rag”, ending their “propaganda poison”. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, whose regime has been accused of repressing political opposition, described Trump’s move as “very promising”.

Domestically, Trump has continued to target the media, whether by taking outlets including CBS News and ABC to court, attempting to block political access to the White House by the Associated Press, or defund National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service – institutions he has described as “radical left monsters”.

For many senior media figures around the world, there has been a tipping of the scales as authoritarian regimes are emboldened by a US administration not only attacking the media at home, but also withdrawing from the fight for free information overseas.

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Jonathan Munro, global director of BBC News , says: “Three-quarters of countries around the world don’t have free media, and that figure is getting worse, not better.

“It’s not just the lack of free media. It’s the proactive and aggressive march of disinformation and misinformation, which arrives on people’s phones 24 hours a day. That’s a cocktail for a very badly informed, or misinformed, global population.”

Munro says authoritarian regimes were already reacting to the withdrawal of the west and growing their own presence.

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