Gates, Other “Philanthropy,” and the Purchase of a Success Narrative
Billionaire Bill Gates funds the media.
This is no surprise to me.
What did surprise me is the discovery that he meets with the media he funds (and others) regularly behind closed doors.
Yep.
Gates Briefs a Media He Pays For (And Then Some)
In February 2013, journalist Tom Paulson wrote a piece on Gates’ private meetings with the media he funds. Paulson was not invited.
Notice some of the names:
I (Paulson) wasn’t actually allowed behind the scenes at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s recent meeting in Seattle entitled “Strategic Media Partnerships.”The Gates Foundation funds a lot of media – more than $25 million in media grants for 2012 (but still less than 1% of the budget).I’m media but I wasn’t invited. I asked if I could come and report on it, but was told the meeting was off the record. Those attending included representatives from the New York Times, NPR, the Guardian, NBC, Seattle Times and a number of other news organizations, non-profit groups and foundations. Not all were grant recipients, or partners. Some just came to consult. [Emphasis added this paragraph.]
In August 2014, I wrote about the Gates-funded, Seattle Times blog, Education Lab.
Education Lab is trying to offer predominately light, benign stories arguably designed to divert public attention from the increasingly-evident documentation regarding the failure of education privatization.
In Seattle, Gates is paying for the reporting of “positive outcomes.”Gates, Other “Philanthropy,” and the Purchase of a Success Narrative | deutsch29: