Gates Funds NBC & NPR Education & Common Core Coverage
Colorado PolitiChick Kathryn Porter is a freelance writer and educational consultant for homeschooling families. Specializing in “outside the box” students, she encourages public school parents and hom… More
Is there a Common Core bias in mainstream media? And if yes, could it be due to the generous flow of money from Bill Gates? Bill Gates, known for his support of Common Core has been pumping millions through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation into media outlets towards education coverage.
In September of 2013, NBC under the name NBCUniversal, received a 1.3 million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation “to support the 2013 Education Nation Summit’s Teacher Town Hall and expand education coverage.” That’s $1,340,000, to be exact. The Gates Foundation shows it also awarded NBC $1,000,000 in 2012 to support the Education Nation Summit and $2,033,500 in 2010 to support the “National Education Summit”
EDweek reported that the 2011 summit opened with Brian Williams stating this:
“Gates Foundation, one of the sponsors of this event, and the largest single funder of education anywhere in the world. It’s their facts that we’re going to be referring to often to help along our conversation.”
Select education articles from NBCnews.com ends with this note: “Education coverage for NBCNews.com is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. NBC News retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.”
NBC is not the only news outlet accepting money from Gates. NPR has been receiving Gates money for education coverage since 2006, plus millions more for increased coverage of health issues—including a 2013 4.5 million grant “to advance global health and development coverage”.
NPR is not as transparent in reminding its audience of its support from the Gates Foundation. In an article highlighting the benefits of the software Course Signals, a disclosure statement was only added after a commenter posted the Gates connection. “Disclosure: As a commenter points out below, the Gates Funds NBC & NPR Education & Common Core Coverage » Politichicks.com: