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Alternative Media Censorship: Sponsored by CIA's Ford Foundation?
The multi-billion dollar Ford Foundation's historic relationship
to the Central Intelligence Agency is rarely mentioned on Pacifica's
Democarcy Now! / Deep Dish TV show, on FAIR's Counterspin show, on the Working Assets Radio show, on The Nation Institute's Radio Nation show, on David
Barsamian's Alternative Radio show or in the pages of Progressive, Mother Jones, and Z magazine. One reason may be because the Ford Foundation and
other Establishment foundations subsidize the Establishment Left's alternative
media gatekeepers / censors.
Pacifica / Demoncracy Now! / Deep Dish TV
Take Pacifica / DEMOCRACY NOW, an alternative radio network
with annual revenues of $10 million in 2000, whose National Program Director
was paid $63,000 in that year. In the early 1950s--when the CIA was using
the Ford Foundation to help fund a non-communist "parallel left"
as a liberal Establishment alternative to an independent, anti-Establishment
revolutionary left--the Pacifica Foundation was given a $150,000 grant in
1951 by the Ford Foundation's Fund for Education. According to James Ledbetter's
book Made Possible By..., "the Fund's first chief was Alexander Fraser,
the president of the Shell Oil Company."
Besides subsidizing the Pacifica Foundation in the early 1950s,
the Ford Foundation also spent a lot of money subsidizing many other noncommercial
radio or television stations in the United States. According to Ledbetter's
Made Possible By..., between 1951 and 1976, the Ford Foundation "spent
nearly $300 million on noncommercial radio and television."
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Pacifica relied primarily
on listener-sponsor contributions to fund the operations of its radio stations.
And in the early 1970s, Pacifica also began to accept funds from the U.S.
Establishment's Corporation for Public Broadcasting [CPB], according to
Rogue State author William Blum--who worked as a KPFA staffperson in the
early 1970s.
But in the early 1990s, some Pacifica administrators decided
to again seek grants from the Ford Foundation and other Establishment foundations.
As former Pacifica Development Director Dick Bunce wrote in the appendix
to the "A Strategy for National Programming" document which was
prepared for the Pacifica National Board in September 1992, entitled "Appendix
Foundation Grantseeking National Programming Assumptions for Foundation
Fundraising":
The national foundation grantseeking arena has changed enough
in recent years to make activity in this arena potentially worthwhile--for
organizations prepared to be players and partners in the same field as National
Public Radio, APR, maybe some others...The foundation funding of interest
is in gifts of $100,000 or more a year, for several years...
Three of America's six largest foundations (Ford, MacArthur, Pew) have begun
to fund public broadcasting, public radio in particular, and evidently intend
to continue doing so.
Pacifica requested meetings with each of these foundations earlier this
year and was treated seriously enough in subsequent meetings to give us
some hope of securing funding possibly from all three. A `Report Sheet'
on this work is included in Appendix 3.
Beyond these three foundations there are no others among the
country's 100 largest which have made substantial grants to public broadcasting.
So the second tier of foundation prospects look substantially different
from the first tier requiring more work on our part to open doors, establish
`standing' and find a workable `fit.'
There are nonetheless a number of interesting prospects--in
some cases only because of particular people who are currently involved,
or because of formal criteria which we could try to fit.
The second tier list includes several from the top 100--Rockefeller, Irvine,
Surdna, George Gund--Nathan Cummings--and a number of smaller foundations,
but still capable of 6 figure grants: Aaron Diamond, Revson,
Rockefeller Family & Associates, New World,
Winston Foundation for World Peace.
Once we drop to the $35,000 to $75,000 grant range, the list
enlarges, but these take as long to cultivate as the bigger ones, so it
makes sense to start from the top.
Foundation fundraising at this level has extraordinary payoffs--but
it takes senior staff time, not `grantwriting' but in communicating. It
is therefore expensive, and not successfully done as an afterthought to
everything else in the day. It also requires `venture capital visits' to
the foundations to open doors and conversations that lead to partnerships.
In initiating three top level contacts in April, May and
June, and attempting to capitalize on the opportunities apparent to us,
we have already been stretched beyond our capacity to really interface effectively
with these funders--although admittedly much of the problem to date has
been due to the fact that we don't yet have a clear business plan for national
programming.
Foundation grantmaking will most likely proceed as short-term
funding. Funders will want to `fund projects, not operations.' We should
presume that we can succeed in raising serious money to launch or establish
new programs, etc. but not to sustain them beyond start-up. The standard
of self-sufficiency will be required for many proposals we submit, and our
own planning will be most successful if we relate to this funding source
accordingly.
Short-Run Strategies for Developing a Foundation Grantseeking
Program
Seek Development Committee leadership in planning for Foundation
grantseeking.
Pursue 3 `anchor' grants to acquire funding beginning in
FY'93 from the Big 3 foundations we've already begun to work with.
Long-Range Strategies for Developing a Foundation Grantseeking
Program
Initiate an informal `feasibility inquiry' of foundation
support for Pacifica's objectives by requesting visits with the dozen top
prospects to shape proposals and establish relationships...
Foundation Grants Summary: Late this spring we began our
first efforts in national foundation grantseeking on behalf of national
programming. We have a good chance of securing six figure grants in the
coming fiscal year from any or all of the 3 foundations we're working with,
but our approach is still dependent upon our own organizational progress
toward a business plan that we are committed to following through on.
The second tier of foundation prospects is more challenging,
and will require increased staff resources, a modest feasibility inquiry
and active planning with the Board Development Committee.
By 1995, billionaire speculator George
Soros' Open Society Institute had given the Pacifica Foundation a $40,000
grant. And in 1996, the Carnegie Corporation of New York gave Pacifica a
$25,000 grant to launch its Democarcy Now! show.
In 1997 came a $13,000 grant from the J.M. Kaplan Fund to
Pacifica to provide support for Democracy Now! And in 1998 came a $25,000
grant to Pacifica from the Public Welfare Foundation "to report on
hate crimes and related issues as part of its `Democarcy Now!" public-affairs
radio program and an additional $10,000 grant to support Democarcy Now! from
the J.M. Kaplan Fund.
That same year the Ford Foundation gave a $75,000 grant to
Pacifica "toward marketing consultancy, promotional campaign and program
development activities for radio program, Democarcy Now! " In 1998 and
1999, two grants, totalling $22,500, were also given to Pacifica by the
Boehm Foundation, to support its Democracy Now! show.
In early 2002, an additional Ford Foundation grant of $75,000
was given to Deep Dish TV "for the television news series, Democarcy Now!, to continue incorporating the aftermath of the September 11th attack
into future broadcasts."
Besides being presently subsidized by the Ford Foundation
to air Pacifica's Democarcy Now! show, Deep Dish TV, with an annual income
of $158,000 in 2000, was also subsidized by the MacArthur Foundation in
the 1990s. Between 1993 and 1998, $190,000 in grants were given to Deep
Dish TV by the MacArthur Foundation. And one of the members of Deep Dish
TV's board of directors in recent years has apparently been a WBAI staffperson
named Mario Murillo.
Another Ford Foundation grant of $200,000 was given in April
2002 to the Astraea Foundation, whose former board finance
committee chairperson, Leslie Cagan, is presently the chairperson
of Pacifica's national board.
Three other grants have been given to the Astraea Foundation
by the Ford Foundation since 2000: two grants, totalling $75,000, in 2000;
and a $200,000 grant in 2001 "for general support and subgrants to
community-based organizations addressing social, political and economic
justice, especially those focused on lesbians and other sexual minorities."
The former finance committee chairperson of the Ford Foundation-sponsored
Astraea Foundation recently signed a $2 million "golden handshake /
sweetheart contract" with the Ford Foundation-sponsored, soon-to-be-privatized
Democarcy Now! producer Amy Goodman (who has apparently been receiving a
$90,000/year salary from Pacifica in recent years for her alternative journalism
work).
Part 2
FAIR / Counterspin / Institute for Public Acccuracy
The FAIR/Counterspin/Institute for Public Accuracy alternative
media gatekeepers/censors--which includes Counterspin co-hosts/producers
Steve Rendall and Janine Jackson, Institute for Public Accuracy/Making Contact
executive director Norman Solomon, MSNBC/Donahue Show Producer Jeff Cohen and Working Assets Radio show producer Laura Flanders--have also been subsidized
by the Ford Foundation and other Establishment foundations in recent years.
At a June 1988 street fair in Manhattan's Union Square which
marked the 35th anniversary of the Rosenbergs' execution, MSNBC Donahue Show producer Jeff Cohen sat behind a table selling copies of his recently-created Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting [FAIR] group's journal, EXTRA!. Within
a few years, Cohen's FAIR alternative media group was airing a weekly media
watch show called Counterspin on Pacifica's WBAI station in New York City.
What listeners of Counterspin were not told in the 1990s, however, was that
around 30 percent of FAIR's funding was coming from Foundation grants, including
grants from Establishment foundations like the Rockefeller Family Fund,
the MacArthur Foundation, Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation and the Ford
Foundation.
In 1991, FAIR was given a $20,000 grant from the Rockefeller
Family fund "for general support." And then in 1992, annual grants
to FAIR started to pour in from the MacArthur Foundation offices in Chicago.
In an early 1997 interview, the program officer who was then responsible
for the MacArthur Foundation's media program, Patricia Boero, told AQUARIAN/DOWNTOWN
magazine: "MacArthur is funding Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
And in '96, they received $75,000 towards the cost of operations.
We've been funding it since 1992, at approximately the same
level. It was slightly higher a few years ago, when the media budget was
a little bigger." Boero also told AQUARIAN/DOWNTOWN in 1997 that one
reason the MacArthur Foundation began funding FAIR was that FAIR was already
being funded by other foundations such as "the Rockefeller Family Fund."
Later in 1997, more MacArthur Foundation money was thrown
in FAIR's direction by a MacArthur "genius grant" program--which
was then headed by a member of both the Public Broadcasting Service [PBS]
board and NATION magazine's Nation Institute Board, named Catharine Stimpson.
A dancer who was the partner of one of the co-hosts/producers of FAIR's
COUNTERSPIN radio show was given a $290,000 individual grant by the MacArthur
Foundation program which Nation Institute and PBS board member Stimpson
directed.
Since 1997, FAIR has continued to receive grants from the
MacArthur Foundation. In 1998 it was given an additional grant of $150,000
by the MacArthur Foundation. And in 2000, another MacArthur Foundation of
$125,000 was given to FAIR.
Another Establishment foundation, Public Affairs TV Inc. Executive
Director Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation also began subsidizing FAIR's
alternative media work in the early 1990s. In 1995, for instance, Moyers'
Schumann Foundation gave FAIR a $150,000 grant "to support promotion
of book THE WAY THINGS AREN'T," which was co-authored by COUNTERSPIN
co-host/producer Steve Rendall. And in 1996, an additional grant of $15,000
from the Schumann Foundation (whose president, Public Affairs TV Inc. Executive
Director Bill Moyers, was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary in
the 1960s) was given to FAIR.
Since 1996, FAIR has continued to receive grants from Moyers'
Schumann Foundation, including a post-2000 grant of between $50,000 and
$100,000. In addition, one of the co-hosts/producers of FAIR's COUNTERSPIN
show, Janine Jackson, sits on the board of a group, Citizens for Independent
Broadcasting [CIPB]. In 2002, Moyers' Schumann Foundation gave the Center
for Social Studies Education a $200,000 grant "for continued support
for activities of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting [CIPB]."
The executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy
[IPA]/MAKING CONTACT alternative media group, Norman Solomon, was listed
on FAIR's 1997 form 990 as being the "president" of FAIR and has
been a FAIR associate in recent years. Like FAIR, former FAIR President
Solomon's Institute for Public Accuracy, with an annual income of $267,000,
has been subsidized by Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation. In 1997, Moyers'
Schumann Foundation gave a $100,000 grant to Solomon's IPA/International
Media project "for effort to hold think tanks to high standards of
accuracy."
In addition to being subsdiized by the Rockefeller Family
Fund, the MacArthur Foundation and the Schumann Foundation in the 1990s,
FAIR also began receiving grants from the Ford Foundation in the mid-1990s.
As the Working Assets Radio web site noted in 2001:
"As
the founder of the Women's Desk at the media watchdog FAIR [Working Assets Radio producer-host Laura] Flanders received a $200,000 grant from the Ford
Foundation for a collaborative project to combat racism and sexism in the
news.
The resulting book, Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting, was published to rave reviews by Common
Courage Press in 1997."
Besides the Ford Foundation's $200,000 grant
to FAIR in 1996 or 1997 to help subsidize the alternative media work of
its Women's Desk, an additional grant of $150,000 from the Ford Foundation
was given to FAIR in 1997 or 1998. And in 2001, yet another $150,000 grant
was given to FAIR by the Ford Foundation for "general support to monitor
and analyze the performance of the news media in the United States."
In recent months, the Ford Foundation and Schumann Foundation-subsidized
"media watchdogs" from FAIR and the Institute for Public Accuracy--Norman
Solomon and Steve Rendall--have seemed more interested in preventing 9/11
conspiracy researchers and journalists from receiving any airtime on Pacifica's
radio stations than in revealing the historical links of their funders to
the CIA or the Johnson White House to their alternative media listeners
and readers.
And Working Assets Radio--which is aired on San Francisco's
KALW and produced by a former co-host/producer of FAIR's COUNTERSPIN and
a forme Pacifica Network News staffperson--has apparently not been eager
to welcome 9/11 conspiracy researchers and journalists onto the show.
Working Assets Radio
Working Assets Radio is a promotional/marketing tool of the
$140 million/year, for-profit Working Assets, Inc. telecommunications company.
And besides funding its own alternative Working Assets Radio show that is
aired on KALW in the Bay Area and over the Internet, Working Assets Inc.
also helps fund other alternative media groups such as FAIR/COUNTERSPIN
and Norman Solomon's Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA).
In 1996, for instance FAIR/COUNTERSPIN was given a $59,723
grant by Working Assets Inc. Among the alternative media groups funded by
Working Assets Inc. in 2000, besides FAIR/COUNTERSPIN and Norman Solomon's
IPA were Free Speech TV and the Independent Press Association. That same
year, Working Assets Inc. also helped fund a group with which DEMOCRACY
NOW producer/host Amy Goodman has worked closely, the East Timor Action
Network, as well as the National Public Radio News and Information Fund,
the Astraea Foundation, People for the American Way Foundation, the Center
for Campus Organizing, United for a Fair Economy, Children's Defense Fund,
the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), MADRE,
and the American Friends Service Committee.
Based in San Francisco, Working Assets Inc. is a privately-held,
secretive telecommunications company that discloses very little financial
information about its for-profit business to either its 400,000 customers
or to U.S. consumers in general.
One of its founders was Tides Foundation President Drummond
Pike. A trustee of Mills College in recent years, Laura Scher, is a top
executive at Working Assets Inc. Another top Working Assets Inc. executive,
Michael Kieschnick, has also been involved until recently with the board
of the National Network of Grantmakers, which also includes representatives
of the Funding Exchange and the board of Mother Jones magazine/Foundation
for National Progress.
Kieschnick still sits on the White House Project Advisory
Board between folks like PBS CEO Pat Michell and former U.S. Vice President
Walter Mondale. The White House Project Advisory Board was set-up to promote
the presidential candidacies of mainstream women politicians such as U.S.
Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Another Working Assets Inc. official in recent years,
Lawrence Livak, has also been the Tides Foundation Treasurer in recent years.
Because Working Assets Inc.'s stock is not sold on the stock
market, it is not legally obligated to post much financial information about
its business operations onto the Internet. In addition, executives at Working
Assets Inc. have been reluctant to reveal to Movement writer-activists what
kind of salaries it is presently paying its top executives. Working Assets
Inc. has also collaborated with J.C. Penney in recent years on a "Shop
for Social Change" business project.
Besides having the book she wrote in the 1990s subsidized
by the Ford Foundation, the Working Assets Radio host/producer, Laura
Flanders, also had her journalism work subsidized for awhile in
1998 by another foundation. After the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation gave
a $50,000 grant to the Center for Democracy Studies of The Nation Institute,
"to monitor anti-abortion activities of several right-wing groups,"
Flanders was employed briefly by that Nation magazine think-tank to write
an article on the subject, which subsequently appeared in The Nation magazine.
In 2000, the Rockefeller Foundation also gave the Working Assets Radio producer/host and two colleagues a $20,000 grant "to support
the creation and production of `Action Heroes,' a multidisciplinary work."
Members of the Rockefeller Foundation have included World Bank manager,
a Ford Motor Company director, a MacArthur Foundation director, and an ITT
Sheraton Corp. vice-president in recent years.
Besides being the niece of COUNTERPUNCH editor Alexander
Cockburn, Working Assets Radio producer/host Flanders is also the
older sister of Stephanie Flanders, who worked in the
Clinton Administration as a speechwriter/special assistant to Treasury Secretary
Larry Summers.
The Young Chiefs
Around the same time that former U.S. Treasury Secretary Summers
was named the new president of Harvard University, Stephanie Flanders began
working as a New York Times reporter. An October 1999 Observer article by
Simon Kuper, entitled "The New Elite Who Run Our Equal Society"
indicated that the Working Assets Radio host's younger sister is part of
a British elite group nicknamed "The Young Chiefs."
According to Kuper: "Members of this new elite were presented
with thrilling opportunities early in life... Another characteristic of
the new elite is networks. The Young Chiefs, who tend to live near each
other in the centre of London, got the big breaks from old friends or people
they meet at their friends' brunches or leaving parties.
On the political side, the Young Chiefs are so close that
many of them are related. Ed Balls (Oxford, Harvard and the Financial Times,
economic adviser to Gordon Brown)...studied in Boston...Ball's wife, Yvette
Cooper (Oxford and Harvard, now a Labour MP), is a Young Chief too, as is
her sometime tutorial partner at Oxford, Stephanie Flanders (Oxford, Harvard
and the Financial Times, senior adviser to the U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry
Summers)...Nick Denton (Oxford and the Financial Times, founder of Moreover.com)
was a friend of Flanders at the Financial Times and through her met the
elder Balls"
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