Gates Foundation controls media through massive journalism grants

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
Feb 23, 2011

Most major newspapers and media outlets in the world are owned by a handful of multinational corporate giants, who together control the content of what is distributed to the masses. But a recent report in The Seattle Times questions the influence the world’s most powerful foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), has on the media as well. The foundation donates billions of dollars every year to fund “advocacy and policy” programs, and much of this money ends up being distributed as direct payments to media outlets who advocate for the foundation’s interests.

While much of what the BMGF does and says is wrapped in philanthropic language and problem-solving rhetoric, many of its policies, including its support of mass vaccination and genetically-modified organisms (GMO), present a clear conflict of interest when the foundation’s dollars get mixed up in what is ideally supposed to be unbiased journalism. And many are now questioning how severely these payoffs are influencing the media’s handling of important and controversial issues.

According to the Seattle Times report, BMGF donates millions every year to media groups like ABC, The Guardian, The New York Times, PBS, and even The Seattle Times. BMGF also spends millions of dollars training journalists in how to properly advocate for foundation interests, and craft media messages in such a way as to further the foundation’s agendas. So rather than presenting news, many BMGF-funded journalists now present carefully-crafted BMFG talking points to viewers and readers.

Some readers may be thinking, is it really that bad to advocate for programs that help bring awareness to global poverty and disease, and present ideas on how to solve them? Well, concerning BMGF’s open endorsement of widespread vaccinations in developing nations, for instance, Bill Gates late last year explained how the vaccination agenda is part of an overall plan to reduce the world’s population (http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_v…). This fact alone shows that BMGF’s goals are not exactly benign.

Then, there is BMGF’s promotion of GMOs, and its close alliance with biotechnology giant Monsanto. BMGF has allied with Monsanto on many occasions, including recently purchasing 500,000 shares of stock in Monsanto’s experimental vaccine nanotechnology, supporting the development of genetically-modified mosquitoes (http://www.naturalnews.com/030940_B…), and funding efforts to spread Monsanto’s GM seeds throughout developing Africa in order to allegedly solve hunger and starvation (http://www.naturalnews.com/029071_B…).

Speaking to the Times about BMGF’s influence in the media, Mark Miller, professor of media, culture and communications at New York University, perhaps says it best concerning the misnomer that BMGF is purely trying to solve the world’s problems in an open discussion forum via the media.

“We’re not dealing with a lively discussion among players,” he emphasized. “We’re dealing with one gigantic entity … that seems to be very skilled at promoting its agenda.”

Sources for this story include:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht…

 

 

 

WikiLeaks founder plans major leak if his website is shut down permanently

AFP
Jan 31, 2011

WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Sunday detailed a plan to release a deluge of secret documents should the whistleblower website be permanently shut down.

In an exclusive interview with CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” Assange said his group had a “system whereby we distribute encrypted backups of things we have yet to publish.”

“There are backups distributed amongst many, many people, 100,000 people, and all we need to do is give them an encrypted key and they will be able to continue on,” he said.

The WikiLeaks founder, who is currently under US criminal investigation over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret military reports and diplomatic cables, said the key would only be released as a last resort.

Full article here

W O R L D W I D E : r E V O L U T I O N

Youtube
Jan 31, 2011

Moving video summarizing recent events in Egypt, the wider Middle East and the global fallout. Human beings around the world are speaking out, and the message is clear – WE WILL NOT LIVE ON OUR KNEES.

Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
London Telegraph
Jan 31, 2011

Political risk has returned with a vengeance. The first food revolutions of our Malthusian era have exposed the weak grip of authoritarian regimes in poor countries that import grain, whether in North Africa today or parts of Asia tomorrow.

If you insist on joining the emerging market party at this stage of the agflation blow-off, avoid countries with an accelerating gap between rich and poor. Cairo’s EGX stock index has dropped 20pc in nine trading sessions.
Events have moved briskly since a Tunisian fruit vendor with a handcart set fire to himself six weeks ago, and in doing so lit the fuse that has detonated Egypt and threatens to topple the political order of the Maghreb, Yemen, and beyond.

As we sit glued to Al-Jazeera watching authority crumble in the cultural and political capital of the Arab world, exhilaration can turn quickly to foreboding.

This is nothing like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The triumph of secular democracy was hardly in doubt in central Europe. Whatever the mix of aspirations of those on the streets of Cairo, such uprisings are easy prey for tight-knit organizations – known in the revolutionary lexicon as Leninist vanguard parties.

Full article here

Corporations, US Government Run News Media

Russia Today
Sunday, January 30, 2011

Several huge corporations own networks and newspapers in the US. How much of the content do they control? Radio Host Alex Jones says the old media is too close to not only corporations, but the government too. Many Americans are turning to alternative online sources for the truth, but Google, which Jones alleges was created by the NSA, will soon start to censor alternative news outlets.