Special to WorldTribune.com, January 31, 2024

Corporate WATCH

Commentary by Joe Schaeffer @Schaeff55

It’s telling that the reposting of vacuous mutterings about the loss to “democracy” by glum Democrat politicians was a staple of social media activity by laid-off Los Angeles Times staffers in the days after they were jettisoned from the crumbling newspaper. Completely devoid of any self-awareness whatsoever, these progressive activists thinly disguised as journalists instinctively leaned on statist officials of the ruling establishment to tell the American people just how important they are.

As has been widely reported, the ludicrously woke Times on Jan. 23 let go 115 employees. That amounts to more than 20 percent of the news staff.

The blending of an allegedly once-independent major media apparatus with the dominant political status quo is fact in America today. It's not difficult to document. The total abandonment of journalistic ethics becomes more pronounced with each passing day.

In December, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation bestowed a lavish $1,829,815 grant on the Associated Press, the leading news wire service in America. The check was cut “to deepen AP’s reporting on Africa, and to amplify the work of scientists and experts innovating in the areas of global health and development.”

For those even the least bit familiar with the Microsoft co-founder's global endeavors to promote vaccines, population control and other “health” ventures, the implications could not be more clear: Bill Gates is purchasing positive coverage of his “philanthropic” efforts in Africa.

Gates has very good reason to support AP. It has vigorously backed his work in Africa in so-called “news articles” and even defended criticism of him in the name of fighting “widely shared disinformation.” How’s that $1.8 million investment paying off?

Check out the lead sentence of this Jan. 25 AP article:
 

The CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a message: Hey billionaires, give away more of your money to address inequality and do it soon.

Displaying a truly brazen disregard for the appearance of compromise, AP interviewed Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman, using his words to give the most sunny account possible of its financial benefactor:
 

“We are doing exactly what my call to action is,” Suzman said in an interview with The Associated Press. ”At a time of great need, if there is an opportunity to expand our giving, we should be modeling what that looks like.”

It's OK, though, because AP acknowledges it is owned by the subject of its “reporting” in a one-sentence disclaimer in paragraph 13:
 

The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Here’s an actual X post from the "philanthropy editor" of the Associated Press – if you thought his desk was about investigating these super-wealthy foundations, you thought wrong:
 

Why @gatesfoundation CEO is asking billionaires to give it away, give it away, give it away now. #philanthropy https://t.co/bmIztqeBhy

— Glenn Gamboa (@GlennGamboa) January 25, 2024

But it’s not just Gates. A list of Associated Press donors found on the AP website is eye-opening.

“Current philanthropic supporters” include the Obamacare-promoting Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the notoriously progressive establishment media-backing John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the globalist powerhouse Rockefeller Foundation.

“Past philanthropic supporters” include Columbia Journalism School, Google News Initiative and the Facebook-funded Lenfest Institute. So much for unbiased coverage of Ivy League academia, Big Tech or the moneyed powers that be on the global stage today. “Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US,” reads a tag at the end of the gushing Jan. 25 report on the Gates Foundation. What is that? “We are a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good,” The Conversation explains on its website. “We publish trustworthy and informative articles written by academic experts for the general public and edited by our team of journalists.”

In a more honest age, there would be a word that fits this: propaganda. The mission of The Conversation US amounts to nothing more than elevating expertism to its rightful lofty perch above the riff-raff that is the common citizenry:
 

The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena.

Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion.

The Conversation U.S. seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone.

Read that excerpt again. The arrogance is as glaring as the blissful lack of awareness as to how much public trust the professional academic and journalistic classes have forfeited due to the very sentiments expressed here. Predictably, The Conversation US, partner of the Associated Press, is fully tainted by leftist and globalist Big Money. Gates Foundation? Check. Radical Ford Foundation? Check.

In its tidy bio of the rabidly leftist Ford Foundation, The Conversation US expressly praises its commitment to “social change”:
 

For more than 80 years it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement.

This is the power nexus that has fully absorbed the Associated Press. No truly neutral observer would describe a media organization financially indebted to these agenda-driven, heavyweight moneyed influencers as “independent.” Yet here is the AP describing itself at the bottom of a Dec. 13 press release celebrating its latest cash infusion from Big Philanthropy Inc.:
 

The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day.

One can think of 1,829,815 reasons to chuckle. Alas, that figure does not begin to scratch the surface of the spider web of compromise entangling establishment journalism today. Big Media may indeed be suffering severe financial setbacks at the moment, but a ruling progressive establishment awash in money will assure that it continues to serve its assigned role in the global control construct for some time to come.

---

Action . . . . Intelligence . . . . Publish