Special to WorldTribune.com, September 21, 2021
Corporate WATCH
Commentary by Joe SchaefferSimple and to the point. Let’s look at how ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN took the dirty Bill Gates money and are now lavishing him with friendly news coverage. This review tracks how these major broadcast networks explicitly went down this road more than 10 years ago and how they continue on it today.
Sept. 2020: Bill Gates gives CNN $3.6 million for news content. From the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website. “Grant Purpose”:
To provide support to CNN to report 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.
June 2021: CNN publishes a “news” article on the very topic that was the subject of the Gates grant, without so much as mentioning a word of the donation in its “reporting”:
The Gates founded their philanthropic organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in 2000. Since then, the foundation has spent $53.8 billion on a wide range of initiatives related to global health, poverty alleviation and more, according to its website.
Carrying water for a donor? Say it isn’t so. This isn’t journalism, CNN. August 5, 2021:
Speaking with CNN's Anderson Cooper Wednesday, Gates said he only met with [disgraced pedophile Jeffrey] Epstein in the hopes of raising more money to deal with global health issues.
"I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge," Gates said. "When it looked like that wasn't a real thing, that relationship ended."
NBC has taken the Gates money in the past as well. The Peacock raked in over $4.3 million between 2010-13.
This isn’t journalism, NBC. Dec. 4, 2020:
Bill Gates, who has warned for years of a global disease outbreak, said he expects almost all Covid-19 vaccines to succeed, but warned Americans not to get a false sense of security and urged them to continue following public health protocols until the vaccine is widely distributed. G
ates told Savannah Guthrie in an interview on the "TODAY" show Thursday that he anticipates a surge in the spring unless Americans "double down on our behavior." "The most impactful thing is associating with people less, wearing a mask," Gates said. "This is a war — we're all in it together."
He added that while vaccine distribution would be difficult because “the federal government has abdicated some of its responsibilities in a public health crisis,” Gates said he remained optimistic.
"I would immediately step up and take the vaccine," he said.
CBS-Viacom: This isn't entertainment. New York Times article, April 1, 2009. Note: “ER” and “Law & Order: SVU” aired on NBC while “Private Practice” was an ABC program:
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation... is less well known as a behind-the-scenes influencer of public attitudes toward these issues by helping to shape story lines and insert messages into popular entertainment like the television shows “ER,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “Private Practice.” The foundation’s messages on H.I.V. prevention, surgical safety and the spread of infectious diseases have found their way into these shows.
Now the Gates Foundation is set to expand its involvement and spend more money on influencing popular culture through a deal with Viacom, the parent company of MTV and its sister networks VH1, Nickelodeon and BET. It could be called “message placement”: the social or philanthropic corollary to product placement deals in which marketers pay to feature products in shows and movies. Instead of selling Coca-Cola or G.M. cars, they promote education and healthy living.
Viacom and the Gates Foundation seem to have a thriving working relationship. Here is an August 2009 news release from the Foundation marking their partnership in a “Get Schooled” project targeting children. Check out the influential figures who took up the Gates cause:
The back-to-school event on Sept. 8 will kick off with an afternoon conference featuring presentations by Bill Gates, Viacom President and CEO Philippe Dauman, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, author and political columnist Arianna Huffington, New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein, and Los Angeles area high-school athletic director Stephen Minix. Stephen Colbert, host of the popular television show The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, will serve as the master of ceremonies for the conference.
The Paramount Pictures lot will also host a premiere of the special documentary, Get Schooled: You Have the Right, which highlights the education stories of three successful professionals who work with President Barack Obama, 2009 NBA MVP LeBron James and pop superstar Kelly Clarkson. At the event, the Gates Foundation and Viacom will welcome corporate partners AT&T, Capital One Financial Corporation, and NYSE Euronext, which have each signed on to the Get Schooled initiative in order to promote education reform efforts and develop innovative ways of engaging communities and supporting students.
Three Viacom staffers are currently listed on the Board of Get Schooled.
And Bill Gates is still pouring money into the venture in 2021.
The CBS-Viacom merger was completed in 2019 – but the two entities all were operating under the Sumner Redstone empire in the years before that.
However you want to shape it, what it means today is that the company that owns CBS News is an active partner with Bill Gates, the man CBS News claims to impartially “report” on.
This isn’t journalism, CBS:
Bill Gates doesn't expect everyone to stop eating beef to fight climate change — though it would help. So the billionaire philanthropist is investing in plant-based alternatives in hopes that one day meat-eaters won't be able to tell the difference.
Gates, who has invested in plant-based Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, acknowledged that it will be an uphill battle convincing meat-eaters to forgo beef, but said that the quality of meat imitations are getting better as demand grows. Some restaurants, such as Burger King, are already selling versions of their burgers using the fake beef.
"A lot of Americans will be eating burgers forever. So we need a way of making that that's not a lot more expensive and not inferior. So it's very similar to the electric car learning curve that a little bit of subsidy, a little bit of consumers driving up the volume because they care about climate, will get us to the point where I believe that green premium will also be zero, that you just won't be able to tell the difference," the Microsoft founder told "CBS Evening News" anchor and managing editor Norah O'Donnell on Tuesday.
And, yes, there’s ABC News too.
From The Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 6, 2010:
ABC News will in December launch a year-long health series called “Be The Change: Save A Life,” which will focus on diseases and health conditions that disproportionately affect the world’s poorest people.
ABC News said Wednesday it will invest $4.5 million in the year-long reporting project, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation providing a $1.5 million grant that will help fund foreign travel and production costs abroad. ABC News has complete editorial control over the series’ content.
This wholly unethical relationship still managed to raise red flags 11 years ago. Today, it does not so much as bat an eye. Variety reported at the time on the “highly unusual arrangement”:
Gates Foundation spokeswoman Kate James said that the charity’s interests dovetailed with ABC’s interest in the subject. “We recognize that quality journalism based on data and evidence can increase engagement and bring these issues much needed attention,” James wrote in a blog announcement of the program. “The media landscape continues to change at a rapid rate. International coverage not linked to war and natural disaster continues to be squeezed.”
This isn't journalism ABC. Dec. 10, 2020:
Bill Gates has warned about the need to prepare for a pandemic for years. Since the novel coronavirus swept across the country in March, the billionaire has put his money where his mouth is.
“This will be seared in the memory of this generation, hopefully enough, to invest, to be more ready next time. Hopefully to invest more in all these infectious diseases that are still a huge problem,” Gates told ABC News.
The above evidence is clear and damning. No serious American should take anything these major broadcast “news” outlets air on the coronavirus, vaccines, climate change, food or any of the other numerous pies Bill Gates has his gold-tipped globalist fingers buried in the least bit seriously.
Joe Schaeffer is the former Managing Editor of The Washington Times National Weekly Edition. His columns appear at WorldTribune.com and FreePressInternational.org.
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