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On Monday, "Minnesota Monitor" editor Paul Schmelzer announced the founding of a Washington desk by Moni’s parent “Center for Independent Media”.
I took the opportunity of the unveiling of The Washington Independent to again ask about the source of the funding behind all of these activities and to my utter surprise, Paul posted a list:
"That said, here are the Center for Independent Media's funders; we're awfully grateful for the support: "
Anonymous
Arca Foundation
Arkay
Foundation
Bauman Family Foundation
Better World Fund
Bohemian
Foundation
Brett Family Foundation
Gill Foundation
Open Society
Institute
Park Foundation
Quixote Foundation
Rockefeller Family
Foundation
SEIU
Sunlight Foundation
Surdna Foundation
Wallace
Global Fund
All of these foundations are of course committed to supporting leftist activism of one sort or another. I’m not going to go through the bother of listing all of the people involved, you can probably guess the identities of most of them anyway.
One however does merit mentioning. The ironically named “Open Society Institute” is better known as George Soros.
This is notable because for the past year, Paul’s predecessor Robin Marty, as well as several of MiniMoni’s “fellows” have denied any link to Soros and had in fact taken to deleting any comment that suggested any such link from their site.
Why the sudden candor? Well certainly Erick Black’s recent admission had a lot to do with it, and the fact that at the end of the year these funding sources would have to be disclosed on tax documents probably sealed the deal.
But even as the curtain is being lifted, Schmelzer is trying still to downplay the importance of this issue:
“Eric's "admission," it's worth noting, is not news. We have links to our funders on our About page and our Wikipedia page; the Center for Independent Media lists our donors; and back in October I reprinted a Chronicle of Philanthropy article that lists many of them. Further, The Washington Independent has been crystal clear about these funders, listing them from the start on its About page and in the site's first post, by CIM's national editorial director, Jeff Morley. Googleable links, every one.”
As I pointed out to Paul, MiniMoni’s "about" page says nothing about any of the leftist rainmakers that pay their "stipends", and neither does the "wiki" page.
And if Eric Black's admission is not news, it is only "non-news" in direct proportion of the non-importance of MiniMoni and the other two CIM blogs.
This is news because the groups that Paul listed are the same exact groups that are funding Media Matters, Moveon.Org, CAP and a host of other leftist internet websites and activist groups.
They are investing huge sums of money for one purpose: To spread leftist propaganda and to further the leftist political agenda. I guess this is what George had in mind for America's "de-Nazification".
That's all well and good. There is nothing wrong with guys like George and Ted Turner and the rest of their ultra wealthy friends funding these kinds of groups.
The harm comes with they lie, or perhaps more appropriately stated, the deliberate lack of candor that is required of recipients of these funds. They lie because they would have you believe that they are "modern America's newsroom", bringing you the unbiased facts, when they are not delivering any such thing.
And in the case of MiniMoni, it was all so silly. There are fingerprints all over MiniMoni and various MOBloggers have matched them up with George Soros almost from the start.
All Robin Marty et. al. succeeded in doing with her unremitting denials was to make a absolute mockery of their disingenuous "Code of Ethics". Indeed, when Marty or Schmelzer or the hapless bufoon Jeff Fecke stick their chests out and declare that no one tells them what to do or say on MiniMoni they are saying either they voluntarily lied or that they lied because someone at CIM told them to...which one is it; and does it really matter?
If they are willing to lie about this, on orders from above or not, what else are they willing to lie about? What does this issue really tell us about the paid minions of the Sorosphere?
Caveat emptor my friends; nothing more nothing less.
I, as I’m sure many others will, indeed check out the “Washington Independent” anytime I want to get the left’s perspective of what is going on in Washington. And now that I know who is paying the bills I can weigh just how much credibility I wish to give that information…and now, so can you.
UPDATE: Beltway blogroll's Danny Glover has been having a go with Jefferson Morley, the national editorial director of the "Center for Independent Media" (the guy that signs MiniMoni's Soros checks) and comes to the same conclusions regarding the lack of transparency that we have drawn here.
Predictably, Morley is not happy.
Cross posted at Pair O' Dice, where your right to Soros free speech is an iron clad guarantee. |
