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The Spin War


REVEALED: DOCUMENTS SHOW BILL GATES HAS GIVEN $319 MILLION TO MEDIA OUTLETS

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SEATTLE — Up until his recent messy divorce, Bill Gates enjoyed something of a
free pass in corporate media. Generally presented as a kindly nerd who wants to
save the world, the Microsoft co-founder was even unironically christened “Saint
Bill” by The Guardian.

While other billionaires’ media empires are relatively well known, the extent to
which Gates’s cash underwrites the modern media landscape is not. After sorting
through over 30,000 individual grants, MintPress can reveal that the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has made over $300 million worth of donations to
fund media projects.

Recipients of this cash include many of America’s most important news outlets,
including CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS and The Atlantic. Gates also sponsors a myriad of
influential foreign organizations, including the BBC, The Guardian, The
Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom; prominent
European newspapers such as Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany) and El País
(Spain); as well as big global broadcasters like Al-Jazeera.

The Gates Foundation money going towards media programs has been split up into a
number of sections, presented in descending numerical order, and includes a link
to the relevant grant on the organization’s website.

Awards Directly to Media Outlets:

 * NPR- $24,663,066
 * The Guardian (including TheGuardian.org)- $12,951,391   
 * Cascade Public Media – $10,895,016
 * Public Radio International (PRI.org/TheWorld.org)- $7,719,113
 * The Conversation- $6,664,271
 * Univision- $5,924,043
 * Der Spiegel (Germany)- $5,437,294       
 * Project Syndicate- $5,280,186
 * Education Week – $4,898,240
 * WETA- $4,529,400
 * NBCUniversal Media- $4,373,500
 * Nation Media Group (Kenya) – $4,073,194
 * Le Monde (France)- $4,014,512
 * Bhekisisa (South Africa) – $3,990,182
 * El País – $3,968,184
 * BBC- $3,668,657
 * CNN- $3,600,000   
 * KCET- $3,520,703
 * Population Communications International (population.org) – $3,500,000
 * The Daily Telegraph – $3,446,801
 * Chalkbeat – $2,672,491   
 * The Education Post- $2,639,193
 * Rockhopper Productions (U.K.) – $2,480,392
 * Corporation for Public Broadcasting – $2,430,949
 * UpWorthy – $2,339,023
 * Financial Times – $2,309,845
 * The 74 Media- $2,275,344
 * Texas Tribune- $2,317,163
 * Punch (Nigeria) – $2,175,675
 * News Deeply – $1,612,122
 * The Atlantic- $1,403,453
 * Minnesota Public Radio- $1,290,898
 * YR Media- $1,125,000
 * The New Humanitarian- $1,046,457
 * Sheger FM (Ethiopia) – $1,004,600
 * Al-Jazeera- $1,000,000
 * ProPublica- $1,000,000
 * Crosscut Public Media – $810,000
 * Grist Magazine- $750,000
 * Kurzgesagt – $570,000
 * Educational Broadcasting Corp – $506,504
 * Classical 98.1 – $500,000
 * PBS – $499,997
 * Gannett – $499,651
 * Mail and Guardian (South Africa)- $492,974
 * Inside Higher Ed.- $439,910
 * BusinessDay (Nigeria) – $416,900
 * Medium.com – $412,000   
 * Nutopia- $350,000
 * Independent Television Broadcasting Inc. – $300,000
 * Independent Television Service, Inc. – $300,000
 * Caixin Media (China) – $250,000
 * Pacific News Service – $225,000
 * National Journal – $220,638
 * Chronicle of Higher Education – $149,994
 * Belle and Wissell, Co. $100,000
 * Media Trust – $100,000
 * New York Public Radio – $77,290
 * KUOW – Puget Sound Public Radio – $5,310

Together, these donations total $166,216,526. The money is generally directed
towards issues close to the Gateses hearts. For example, the $3.6 million CNN
grant went towards “report[ing] on gender equality with a particular focus on
least developed countries, producing journalism on the everyday inequalities
endured by women and girls across the world,” while the Texas Tribune received
millions to “to increase public awareness and engagement of education reform
issues in Texas.” Given that Bill is one of the charter schools’ most fervent
supporters, a cynic might interpret this as planting pro-corporate charter
school propaganda into the media, disguised as objective news reporting.

The Gates Foundation has also given nearly $63 million to charities closely
aligned with big media outlets, including nearly $53 million to BBC Media
Action, over $9 million to MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation, and $1 million to The
New York Times Neediest Causes Fund. While not specifically funding journalism,
donations to the philanthropic arm of a media player should still be noted.

Gates continues to underwrite a wide network of investigative journalism centers
as well, totaling just over $38 million, more than half of which has gone to the
D.C.-based International Center for Journalists to expand and develop African
media.

These centers include:

 * International Center for Journalists- $20,436,938
 * Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (Nigeria) – $3,800,357
 * The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting – $2,432,552
 * Fondation EurActiv Politech – $2,368,300
 * International Women’s Media Foundation – $1,500,000
 * Center for Investigative Reporting – $1,446,639
 * InterMedia Survey institute – $1,297,545
 * The Bureau of Investigative Journalism – $1,068,169
 * Internews Network – $985,126
 * Communications Consortium Media Center – $858,000
 * Institute for Nonprofit News – $650,021
 * The Poynter Institute for Media Studies- $382,997
 * Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (Nigeria)  – $360,211
 * Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies – $254,500
 * Global Forum for Media Development (Belgium) – $124,823
 * Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting – $100,000

In addition to this, the Gates Foundation also plies press and journalism
associations with cash, to the tune of at least $12 million. For example, the
National Newspaper Publishers Association — a group representing more than 200
outlets — has received $3.2 million.

The list of these organizations includes:

 * Education Writers Association – $5,938,475
 * National Newspaper Publishers Association – $3,249,176
 * National Press Foundation- $1,916,172
 * Washington News Council- $698,200
 * American Society of News Editors Foundation – $250,000
 * Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press- $25,000

This brings our running total up to $216.4 million.

The foundation also puts up the money to directly train journalists all over the
world, in the form of scholarships, courses and workshops. Today, it is possible
for an individual to train as a reporter thanks to a Gates Foundation grant,
find work at a Gates-funded outlet, and to belong to a press association funded
by Gates. This is especially true of journalists working in the fields of
health, education and global development, the ones Gates himself is most active
in and where scrutiny of the billionaire’s actions and motives are most
necessary.

Gates Foundation grants pertaining to the instruction of journalists include:

 * Johns Hopkins University – $1,866,408
 * Teachers College, Columbia University- $1,462,500
 * University of California Berkeley- $767,800       
 * Tsinghua University (China) – $450,000
 * Seattle University – $414,524
 * Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies – $254,500   
 * Rhodes University (South Africa) – $189,000
 * Montclair State University- $160,538
 * Pan-Atlantic University Foundation – $130,718
 * World Health Organization – $38,403
 * The Aftermath Project- $15,435

The BMGF also pays for a wide range of specific media campaigns around the
world. For example, since 2014 it has donated $5.7 million to the Population
Foundation of India in order to create dramas that promote sexual and
reproductive health, with the intent to increase family planning methods in
South Asia. Meanwhile, it alloted over $3.5 million to a Senegalese organization
to develop radio shows and online content that would feature health information.
Supporters consider this to be helping critically underfunded media, while
opponents might consider it a case of a billionaire using his money to plant his
ideas and opinions into the press.

Media projects supported by the Gates Foundation:

 * European Journalism Centre – $20,060,048
 * World University Service of Canada – $12,127,622
 * Well Told Story Limited – $9,870,333
 * Solutions Journalism Inc.- $7,254,755   
 * Entertainment Industry Foundation – $6,688,208   
 * Population Foundation of India- $5,749,826 –
 * Participant Media – $3,914,207
 * Réseau Africain de l’Education pour la santé- $3,561,683
 * New America – $3,405,859
 * AllAfrica Foundation – $2,311,529
 * Steps International – $2,208,265
 * Center for Advocacy and Research – $2,200,630
 * The Sesame Workshop – $2,030,307
 * Panos Institute West Africa – $1,809,850        
 * Open Cities Lab – $1,601,452   
 * Harvard university – $1,190,527
 * Learning Matters – $1,078,048
 * The Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center- $981,631
 * Thomson Media Foundation- $860,628
 * Communications Consortium Media Center – $858,000
 * StoryThings- $799,536
 * Center for Rural Strategies – $749,945
 * The New Venture Fund – $700,000   
 * Helianthus Media – $575,064   
 * University of Southern California- $550,000
 * World Health Organization- $530,095
 * Phi Delta Kappa International – $446,000
 * Ikana Media – $425,000
 * Seattle Foundation – $305,000
 * EducationNC – $300,000
 * Beijing Guokr Interactive – $300,000   
 * Upswell- $246,918
 * The African Academy of Sciences – $208,708   
 * Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation (SMART) – $201,781
 * Bay Area Video Coalition- $190,000
 * PowHERful Foundation – $185,953
 * PTA Florida Congress of Parents and Teachers – $150,000   
 * ProSocial – $100,000   
 * Boston University – $100,000
 * National Center for Families Learning – $100,000   
 * Development Media International – $100,000
 * Ahmadu Bello University- $100,000
 * Indonesian eHealth and Telemedicine Society – $100,000
 * The Filmmakers Collaborative – $50,000
 * Foundation for Public Broadcasting in Georgia Inc. – $25,000   
 * SIFF – $13,000

Total: $97,315,408

 


$319.4 MILLION AND (A LOT) MORE

Added together, these Gates-sponsored media projects come to a total of $319.4
million. However, there are clear shortcomings with this non-exhaustive list,
meaning the true figure is undoubtedly far higher. First, it does not count
sub-grants — money given by recipients to media around the world. And while the
Gates Foundation fosters an air of openness about itself, there is actually
precious little public information about what happens to the money from each
grant, save for a short, one- or two-sentence description written by the
foundation itself on its website. Only donations to press organizations
themselves or projects that could be identified from the information on the
Gates Foundation’s website as media campaigns were counted, meaning that
thousands of grants having some media element do not appear in this list.

A case in point is the BMGF’s partnership with ViacomCBS, the company that
controls CBS News, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, and BET. Media reports at the time
noted that the Gates Foundation was paying the entertainment giant to insert
information and PSAs into its programming and that Gates had intervened to
change storylines in popular shows like ER and Law & Order: SVU.

However, when checking BMGF’s grants database, “Viacom” and “CBS” are nowhere to
be found, the likely grant in question (totaling over $6 million) merely
describing the project as a “public engagement campaign aimed at improving high
school graduation rates and postsecondary completion rates specifically aimed at
parents and students,” meaning that it was not counted in the official total.
There are surely many more examples like this. “For a tax-privileged charity
that so very often trumpets the importance of transparency, it’s remarkable how
intensely secretive the Gates Foundation is about its financial flows,” Tim
Schwab, one of the few investigative journalists who has scrutinized the tech
billionaire, told MintPress.

Also not included are grants aimed at producing articles for academic journals.
While these articles are not meant for mass consumption, they regularly form the
basis for stories in the mainstream press and help shape narratives around key
issues. The Gates Foundation has given far and wide to academic sources, with at
least $13.6 million going toward creating content for the prestigious medical
journal The Lancet.

And, of course, even money given to universities for purely research projects
eventually ends up in academic journals, and ultimately, downstream into mass
media. Academics are under heavy pressure to print their results in prestigious
journals; “publish or perish” is the mantra in university departments.
Therefore, even these sorts of grants have an effect on our media. Neither these
nor grants funding the printing of books or establishment of websites counted in
the total, although they too are forms of media.

 


LOW PROFILE, LONG TENTACLES

In comparison to other tech billionaires, Gates has kept his profile as a media
controller relatively low. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s purchase of The
Washington Post for $250 million in 2013 was a very clear and obvious form of
media influence, as was eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s creation of First Look
Media, the company that owns The Intercept.

Despite flying more under the radar, Gates and his companies have amassed
considerable influence in media. We already rely on Microsoft-owned products for
communication (e.g. Skype, Hotmail), social media (LinkedIn), and entertainment
(Microsoft XBox). Furthermore, the hardware and software we use to communicate
often comes courtesy of the 66-year-old Seattleite. How many people reading this
are doing so on a Microsoft Surface or Windows phone and doing so via Windows
OS? Not only that, Microsoft owns stakes in media giants such as Comcast and
AT&T. And the “MS” in MSNBC stands for Microsoft.

> The Faux Generosity of the Super-Wealthy: Why Bill Gates is a Menace to
> Society



 


MEDIA GATES KEEPERS

That the Gates Foundation is underwriting a significant chunk of our media
ecosystem leads to serious problems with objectivity. “The foundation’s grants
to media organizations…raise obvious conflict-of-interest questions: How can
reporting be unbiased when a major player holds the purse strings?” wrote
Gates’s local Seattle Times in 2011. This was before the newspaper accepted BMGF
money to fund its “education lab” section.

Schwab’s research has found that this conflict of interests goes right to the
very top: two New York Times columnists had been writing glowingly about the
Gates Foundation for years without disclosing that they also work for a group —
the Solutions Journalism Network — that, as shown above, has received over $7
million from the tech billionaire’s charity.

Earlier this year, Schwab also declined to co-report on a story about COVAX for
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, suspecting that the money Gates had been
pumping into the outlet would make it impossible to accurately report on a
subject so close to Gates’s heart. Sure enough, when the article was published
last month, it repeated the assertion that Gates had little to do with COVAX’s
failure, mirroring the BMGF’s stance and quoting them throughout. Only at the
very end of the more than 5,000-word story did it reveal that the organization
it was defending was paying the wages of its staff.

“I don’t believe Gates told The Bureau of Investigative Journalism what to
write. I think the bureau implicitly, if subconsciously, knew they had to find a
way to tell this story that didn’t target their funder. The biasing effects of
financial conflicts are complex but very real and reliable,” Schwab said,
describing it as “a case study in the perils of Gates-funded journalism.”

MintPress also contacted the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for comment, but
it did not respond.

https://twitter.com/TimothyWSchwab/status/1448321233326592007

Gates, who amassed his fortune by building a monopoly and zealously guarding his
intellectual property, bears significant blame for the failure of the
coronavirus vaccine rollout across the world. Quite aside from the COVAX fiasco,
he pressured Oxford University not to make its publicly-funded vaccine
open-source and available to all for free, but instead to partner with private
corporation AstraZeneca, a decision that meant that those who could not pay were
blocked from using it. That Gates has made over 100 donations to the university,
totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, likely played some role in the
decision. To this day, fewer than 5% of people in low-income countries have
received even one dose of COVID vaccine. The death toll from this is immense.

> Poor Nations Left Reeling After Bill Gates Advised Oxford to Ditch Open Source
> COVID Vaccine



Unfortunately, many of these real criticisms of Gates and his network are
obscured by wild and untrue conspiracy theories about such things as inserting
microchips in vaccines to control the population. This has meant that genuine
critiques of the Microsoft co-founder are often demonetized and algorithmically
suppressed, meaning that outlets are strongly dissuaded from covering the topic,
knowing they will likely lose money if they do so. The paucity of scrutiny of
the world’s second-richest individual, in turn, feeds into outlandish
suspicions.

Gates certainly deserves it. Quite apart from his deep and potentially
decades-long ties to the infamous Jeffrey Epstein, his attempts to radically
change African society, and his investment in controversial chemical giant
Monsanto, he is perhaps the key driver behind the American charter school
movement — an attempt to essentially privatize the U.S. education system.
Charter schools are deeply unpopular with teachers’ unions, which see the
movement as an attempt to lessen their autonomy and reduce public oversight into
how and what children are taught.

 


ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK

In most coverage, Gates’s donations are broadly presented as altruistic
gestures. Yet many have pointed to the inherent flaws with this model, noting
that allowing billionaires to decide what they do with their money allows them
to set the public agenda, giving them enormous power over society. “Philanthropy
can and is being used deliberately to divert attention away from different forms
of economic exploitation that underpin global inequality today,” said Linsey
McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, U.K., and author of
No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of
Philanthropy. She adds:

> The new ‘philanthrocapitalism’ threatens democracy by increasing the power of
> the corporate sector at the expense of the public sector organizations, which
> increasingly face budget squeezes, in part by excessively remunerating
> for-profit organizations to deliver public services that could be delivered
> more cheaply without private sector involvement.”

Charity, as former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee noted, “is a cold grey
loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes
gladly, not dole out money at a whim.”

None of this means that the organizations receiving Gates’ money — media or
otherwise — are irredeemably corrupt, nor that the Gates Foundation does not do
any good in the world. But it does introduce a glaring conflict of interest
whereby the very institutions we rely on to hold accountable one of the richest
and most powerful men in the planet’s history are quietly being funded by him.
This conflict of interest is one that corporate media have largely tried to
ignore, while the supposedly altruistic philanthropist Gates just keeps getting
richer, laughing all the way to the bank.

Feature photo | Bill Gates listens during the “Accelerating Clean Technology
Innovation and Deployment” event at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 2, 2021,
in Glasgow, Scotland. Evan Vucci | Pool via AP

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD
in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake
News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing
Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed
to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common
Dreams.

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23 Comments

November 15th, 2021

ALAN MACLEOD




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