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‘Politics Isn’t Everything’ But When Its Bad It Hurts Millions in USA

Understanding Your World-Following the Money Trail–Following the Facts-George Soros & Co, The Smear, Mainstream Media & Your Quality of Life

L. A. "Tony" Kovach, Neighbor

Posted Thu, Nov 7, 2024 at 12:04 pm ET|Updated Thu, Nov 7, 2024 at 12:12 pm ET

Image credits are as shown. Text and collage credits are by L. A. "Tony" Kovach for the Patch.

"Everything is politics but politics is not everything" said Katie Harbath. This is a useful time to look back at the past several years and ask a simple question. What went so wrong in the U.S.A.? While there are many factors, this article will focus on the importance of problematic news reporting. For those who may be new to this series of evidence-based op-eds, as a disclosure, I'm a publisher of multiple independent trade media platforms. So, I'm not against the news business. That said, as someone in the news and views business it must be said that an important factor for our country and others around the world getting into serious trouble can often be traced back to problematic news reporting. Other issues can and should be mentioned, like education, big tech, social media, the influence of nonprofits, and the role of government in our daily lives. The influence of religion, or the lack thereof, should be mentioned too, but today this article will focus on the media, the motivation and influence of money, and tactics known as "The Smear." While we mentioned George Soros in the subheading and below, there are others like Soros in the "Donor Class" or "Establishment," so his defining characteristics in this sense is the power that money brings him and others of great wealth like him.

But before we dive into all that, let’s update the known post-election data as of this morning. The sources, such as Breitbart News, are as shown on each image. The Associated Press (AP) is rated as left-leaning by Sharyl Attkisson and others, Breitbart as right-leaning. Meaning, AP tends to favor Democrats and Breitbart is more open to the views of Republicans (a.k.a.: Grand Old Party or GOP).

There are still votes to be counted in some states and districts. But based on the current numbers, one of the shocking facts for Democrats ought to be the sharp falloff in votes for Kamala Harris (D) in 2024 vs. votes claimed for Joe Biden-Kamala Harris (D) in 2020. More on that later.

Find out what's happening in Lakelandfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Note in the above how the left-leaning Washington Post caption under that photo seems to mock Trump supporters as "goofy" for their "Too Big To Rig" statement and related concern? By putting their thumb on the scale of reporting, trust in their own content is undermined. Who says? Gallup's recent survey of Americans' low trust in media.

Via our largest publication, MHProNews, we opened our reporting in 2024 with an in depth look at the historic, multiple-award winning, and still relevant documentary drama Shadows of Liberty. That report linked below is unique online in that it has the full length video (it has an abbreviated and arguably not as good) version of the original production that won the awards. It also has an annotated transcript with commentary. What that means is that viewers and readers can assess its insights and value. Shadows of Liberty explains how much of the media is a business. The owners of the media thus have financial motivations to report, or not report, based in part on their own interests.

Find out what's happening in Lakelandfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

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The quotes and illustrations that follow are from Shadows of Liberty.

From the University of Central Florida (UCF), the insights of Dr. Chrysalis Wright, Ph.D., are worth consideration.

While former President Barack Obama (D) is clearly partisan and left-leaning, MHProNews
created and used the Obama quote illustration for years. Why? Because it underscores the importance of understanding the bias of the source. Obama said: "If you watch Fox News you are living on a different planet than you are if, you, you know, listen to NPR." LIke it or not, that's true.

On MHProNews/MHLivingNews and now here on the Patch we strive to document carefully and provide the sources clearly. As a result, like a report or not, readers can have confidence in its accuracy. We also provide commentary that is labeled as commentary yet is offered as expert insights which can boost a reader's understanding of the topic. People are obviously going to make up their own minds on a subject.

That is now a reasonable foundation to begin to illustrate how the wealthy elites who dominate the Democratic Party (and some RINOs in the GOP too) are influencing how American news is forged by people like billionaire and Democratic mega-donor George Soros. Soros' son Alex has been preparing to fill his father's shoes.

Soros' "empire" reportedly commands $25 billion dollars in cash and assets. Among its investments is Alphabet, parent company to Google and YouTube.

In a tweet (X-post) citing the Media Research Center, "Funding his media empire in the Trump era from 2016 to 2020, Soros paid at least $131 million to influence at least 253 journalism and activist media groups to promote far-left views on abortion, economics, the police, environmentalism, LGBT ideology, and anti-Americanism."

According to the Media Research Center (MRC):

The following is from that MRC research.

Soros' Lifelong Fascination with Journalism

Media has long been one of the billionaire's interests. According to ''Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire,'' he has been fascinated by media from when he was a boy where early career interests included ''history or journalism or some form of writing.'' He served as ''editor-in-chief, publisher, and news vendor of'' his own paper, ''The Lupa News'' and wrote a wall newspaper in his native Hungary before leaving, wrote author Michael T. Kaufman, a 40-year New York Times veteran. The Communist Party ''encouraged'' such papers.

But journalists weren't always interested in Soros. He avoided any form of publicity until 1981 when he was subject of a cover story in Institutional Investor called ''The World's Greatest Money Manager.'' Even in 1983 when he remarried, The New York Times refused to carry the wedding announcement. They were ''nobodies.'' All that changed when he made $1 billion speculating on the British pound. His profile rose a great deal. He was also criticized in the British tabloids including the Daily Mail in 1992 when he was sued by former house staff in England.

In subsequent years, the Soros connection to journalism has reached all facets of his empire - charity, politics and financial transactions. It might be as sweeping as investments in old media like Times Mirror, new media like AOL or charitable giving like NPR. Or it might be the global reach of Open Society funding journalistic events, awards, grants and travel. Former Times foreign correspondent Michael T. Kaufman, who was later the author of ''Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire,'' discovered Soros had ''paid for airfare'' for a European speaking engagement. He hadn't even known Soros was funding that trip.

Now, Soros underwrites journalists, blogs, books, news outlets, TV and radio stations, online operations, start-ups and investigative journalism. The list of media outlets that Soros has helped support reads like a Who's Who of the left. From 2003 to 2009, OSI gave $52 million to roughly 180 media organizations, including the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

A Worldwide Media Powerhouse

The Soros media empire truly spans the globe, but few even realize it because it's decentralized under numerous organizations, funded in turn by more than 30 Open Society Foundations.

Back in 1997, then-Times writer Judith Miller said much of his charity was focused on the media. ''For the past decade, George Soros, the Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist, has spent more than a billion dollars promoting a free press and political pluralism abroad,'' she wrote.

The donations have climbed to $8 billion, but he certainly has continued promoting the press, giving himself global influence in the process. Soros has financed bloggers, journalist travel or education, TV shows, Internet start-ups, investigative journalism and even blogs.

As early as 1994, that empire included ''40 independent radio and television stations and publications'' just in Eastern Europe, according to the March 10, 1994 Jerusalem Report. At the same time, Soros was backing a post-Communist publication called Transitions, but pulled the plug on it in 1999, according to The New York Times.

In 1998, Soros was spending money on Russian media. The Oct. 11, 1998 Times explained that ''Soros gave $10 million toward an $80 million fund he plans to create to help struggling, independent news organizations in Russia ride out the severe economic downturn in that country.''

Soros also made investments in Viacom, College Sports TV, journalism awards even backing events at the Frontline Club in London, what the Times called ''a popular way station for war correspondents.''

The charity work is almost impossible to track, but wherever the Open Society Foundations are, their involvement with journalism is not far behind. The foundation has an entire initiative devoted to the media. Its purported goal is ''to promote independent and viable media and professional, quality journalism in countries undergoing a process of democratization and building functioning media markets.'' The site lists 15 different media program coordinators in nations from Afghanistan to the Ukraine.

In one of its bigger efforts, OSI funded B-92, the Yugoslavia radio network that ''urged young Serbs to avoid the draft'' and spoke out against the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But many operations are smaller. Journalists are chosen to study at Central European University, also funded by Soros. The foundations back the Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny or the Kabul Weekly in Afghanistan.

Soros-Funded Left-Wing Media Reach More Than 300 Million People Every Month

The global reach of the Soros media empire means it reaches millions of people. From nakedly partisan left-wing media like Think Progress, the blog for the Center for American Progress, and a TV show on MSNBC (recently canceled), to the supposedly impartial National Public Radio, Soros has impact on the flow of information worldwide.

It gives him incredible influence. Every month, reporters, writers and bloggers at the many outlets he funds easily reach more than 330 million people around the globe. The U.S. Census estimates the population of the entire United States to be just less than 310 million.

That's roughly the entire population of the United States with the population of Australia thrown in for good measure - every single month.

Just counting 13 prominent operations of the 180 media organizations he has funded equals 332 million people each month. Included in that total are big players like NPR, which received $1.8 million from Soros, as well as the little known Project Syndicate and Public News Service, both of which also claim to reach millions of readers.

And that's really just the beginning. That tally takes into account only a few of the bigger Soros-funded media operations. Many numbers simply aren't available. ''Democracy Now!'' - ''a daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez'' - is known for its left-wing take on global news. Its vitriol ranges from attacks on Blackwater founder Erik Prince and supporters of Andrew Breitbart (whom it calls ''Electronic Brownshirts''), to claims the U.S. is opposed to Arab democracy. Just that one Soros-funded operation is heard ''on over 900 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the United States.'' But it posts no formal audience numbers. Phone calls to ''Democracy Now!'' were not returned.

But Soros wildly understates his own impact. It might be through a ''media reform'' conference with congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. Or it might be through a radio station in Haiti, which he also supports.

The media reform event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, which has received $1.4 million from Soros. Free Press has two major agenda items - undermining Internet freedom by pushing so-called ''net neutrality,'' and advocating for government-funded media to the tune of $35 billion a year.

Many of those attending or speaking were affiliated with Soros-funded operations.

Free Press is just one of the better funded Soros groups. They also include the Center for American Progress ($7.3 million), which operates the heavily staffed Think Progress blog. That blog ''now has 30 writers and researchers,'' according to Politico. Other well-funded operations include the investigative reporting operations at the Center for Public Integrity ($3.7 million) and Center for Investigative Reporting ($1.1 million), as well as Media Matters ($1.1 million) and the Sundance Institute ($1 million).

That's not all. ''Soros' foundations gave 34 grants from 1997 to 2010 to local NPR member stations and specific programs that have totaled nearly $3.4-million, said the foundations' [spokesperson Maria] Archuleta. Recipients included WNYC and Minnesota Public Radio,'' wrote now former NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard.

In fact, Soros funds nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States. Forty-five of those are financed through his support of the Media Consortium. That organization ''is a network of the country's leading, progressive, independent media outlets.'' The list is predictable - everything from Alternet to the Young Turks, who have since lost their MSNBC show.

A report by the Media Consortium detailed how progressives had created an ''echo chamber'' of outlets ''in which a message pushes the larger public or the mainstream media to acknowledge, respond, and give airtime to progressive ideas because it is repeated many times.'' According to the report called ''The Big Thaw,'' ''if done well, the message within the echo chamber can become the accepted meme, impact political dynamics, shift public opinion and change public policy.''

That mindset plays out in much of what the consortium's members do. Alternet describes itself as an ''award-winning news magazine and online community that creates original journalism and amplifies the best of hundreds of other independent media sources.'' It hates Tea Parties and complains about ''hatemongering'' as the ''ugly side of Evangelical Christianity.'' Each month, the site gets 1.5 million unique visitors to its unique view of the world.

Brave New Films, also funded by the Media Consortium, is run by the same people who run Brave New Foundation. Robert Greenwald and Jim Miller produce and distribute videos attacking businesses and conservatives. The site brags about a 2008 election video ''that exposes John McCain's double talk, for instance, and received 9 million views around the world.'' Their latest effort is yet another attack on Koch Industries, attempting to halt a much-needed pipeline from the Canada to the U.S.

Then there's the Young Turks and MSNBC host Cenk Uygur. In 2010, he was welcomed to the network with a press release detailing his web impact. ''One of YouTube's Top 100 Partners, the irreverent talk show averages over 18 million views per month and has over 320 million views overall on its YouTube Channel.''

The list goes on and on. Project Syndicate calls itself ''the world's pre-eminent source of original op-ed commentaries.'' It has wide reach. ''As of May 2011, Project Syndicate membership included 462 leading newspapers in 150 countries.'' Its monthly circulation is 72,815,528. Naturally, ''support comes from the Open Society Institute,'' the primary Soros foundation.

Project Syndicate's columnist line-up, spread to 462 newspapers, is impressively left-leaning or globalist: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as lefty economists Jeffrey Sachs and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

Public News Service describes itself as ''a member-supported news service that advocates journalism in the public interest.'' It is a ''network of state-based news services' in 33 states. It claims it reaches 'a combined national weekly audience of 24 million.'' PNS is proud of its 2010 success. ''Last year the Public News Service produced over 4,000 stories featuring public interest content that were redistributed several hundred thousand times on 6,114 radio stations, 928 print outlets, 133 TV stations and 100s of websites. Nationally, an average of 60 outlets used each story.''

Nearly 30 Soros-funded Media Operations Part of 'War on Fox'

To hear the left tell it, Fox News has a ''history of inciting Islamophobia and racial and ethic animosity'' and tries to ''race bait its viewers.'' One staffer is called a ''hit man,'' while his network is accused of ''attack politics.'' A highly questionable study is hyped by numerous outlets claiming that it ''confirms that Fox News makes you stupid.'' Fox is called simply: ''The Liars' Network.''

Sure, liberals have it in for Fox News, but that deep-seated, anti-Fox agenda isn't just an organic response from the left. It's a George Soros-funded ''echo chamber'' ''in which a message pushes the larger public or the mainstream media to acknowledge, respond, and give airtime to progressive ideas because it is repeated many times.''

The goal is ''Taking Down Fox News,'' as ''Mother Jones,'' a member of the Media Consortium, described it in a headline. That article, about another Soros-funded operation called Color of Change, explained how ''it successfully urged several advertisers, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and RadioShack, to pull their ads from Beck's show.'' Liberals even threw a party to celebrate Beck's departure from Fox News, ''drawing hundreds of activists, journalists and political strategists from the nation's capital,'' according to the Huffington Post.

It was all part of an organized effort against Fox. In all, nearly 30 organizations have attacked Fox News in the six months since the beginning of December, 2010.

Think Progress, the heavily Soros-funded blog for the Center for American Progress, slammed Fox more than 30 times in six months. AlterNet, an especially unhinged liberal outlet, went after the network at least 18 times in those months. It is one of 45 organizations aided by Soros' support of the Media Consortium ''a network of the country's leading, progressive, independent media outlets.''

These outlets are all part of Soros' web of media organizations that mirror his view of Fox as their enemy. That's the way he describes it in the new book, ''The Philanthropy of George Soros.'' ''Those in charge of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, have done well in identifying me as their adversary,'' he wrote. ''They have done less well in the methods they used to attack me: Their lies shall not stand and their techniques shall not endure.''

That anti-Fox agenda is reflected in plans by another group in Soros' pocket to target the network specifically. Media Matters founder David Brock said his Soros-funded operation ($1.1 million) will ''focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests.''

The left hating Fox isn't new. But the efforts of the different groups take on an amazing similarity. Take the University of Maryland study that seemed so critical of Fox News. The study itself included this nugget: ''This suggests that misinformation cannot simply be attributed to news sources, but are part of the larger information environment that includes statements by candidates, political ads and so on.'' That didn't stop any of the groups from using it against Fox News. AlterNet, Washington Monthly, Think Progress and The Nation. It quickly moved into the mainstream media from there.

That's just part of Soros' influence. In the case of Robert Greenwald, he's turned attacking Fox into a mini-industry. Greenwald is founder and president of Brave New Films, also part of the Soros-funded Media Consortium. Greenwald was also behind ''OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism,'' The site for the movie that argues: ''FOX News is on a witch hunt. Fight back.'' The Brave New Films site has an entire section going after Fox called: ''When Fox Attacks.'' It claims: ''Videos from this campaign have been viewed over 8 million times.''

When Soros was criticized by Fox, multiple pieces of the Soros Empire responded. In one case, Jonathan Schell, a fellow at The Nation Institute, another part of the Media Consortium, made Fox News out to be anti-Semitic for criticizing Soros. An opinion piece titled, ''The Protocols of Rupert Murdoch,'' a reference to the infamous anti-Semitic ''Protocols of The Elders of Zion,'' blasted Glenn Beck.

Schell claimed Beck's criticism of ''the financier and philanthropist George Soros'' in effect ''recycles, almost in carbon copy, the tropes of the most virulent anti-Semitic ideologues.'' The column was distributed by another Soros-funded entity, Project Syndicate, which reaches ''462 leading newspapers in 150 countries,'' with a monthly circulation of 72,815,528.

It's that sort of cooperation that makes the Soros-funded ''echo chamber'' successful. Go on AlterNet and find articles from The Nation, a rant by Robert Greenwald or an interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Or go on New America Media's site and find an article from Color Lines.

The content from the 180 media sites that Soros helps support can be linked, cited or reposted, adding to the sense that there is strong interest in any particular ''progressive idea.'' It's just one more way George Soros influences the media.

Conclusion

George Soros is one of the most influential men in the world - in finance, in charity and, yes, in the media. Yet piecing together that influence is difficult because the media are so incurious about his actions. ...

But it isn't just the leftist Soros that is using money to influence public policies and major media. There is also centi-billionaire William "Bill" Gates III. Gates is a longtime ally of centi-billionaire Warren Buffett. Among Buffett's numerous interests are companies like Clayton Homes, 21st Mortgage Corp, and Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance (VMF), which hold an outsized influence over the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI). When you wonder why there is a multi-million unit lack of affordable housing in the U.S., that and the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reforms (MHARR) are among the places to look for answers.

Well before previously lifelong Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) ran for president, he published a report through a nonprofit he has helped lead a report that revealed Gates' media influence.

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Then there is Buffett. Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway's board of directors have obvious media influence. Berkshire owned dozens of newspapers around the country. When Buffett-led Berkshire sold their newspapers to Lee Enterprises they provided the financing, which apparently means that they still have influence.

This is just a partial snapshot of how the rich and powerful influence the news and information that you and most others see, read, and hear. While their influence isn't total, it is widespread. For those who don't read newspapers or watch network news, they are still often exposed through social media and internet searches to information from those sources.

With the above in mind, as attorney and author Roxanne Bland puts it: "Forget what they told you. You want the truth, follow the money."

Award-winning Sharyl Attkisson no longer works for left-leaning CBS News. But she has stressed the importance of double checking facts and following the money trail to understand the agenda behind news sources too.

The media has enormous influence over our society. But there are also other sources of influence, like nonprofits, educational institutions, and of course the government itself. If Americans are to avoid the problems we have suffered during the last 3.5 years citizens need to better understand how they are essentially manipulated by forces that may smear their political opponents in order to make them look dangerous or even evil. Repeating claims from a range of media may make that seem more believable, even if it is false.

Our pre-election reports indicated that there was evidence that Trump could get 306 to 312 electoral college votes. That is what appears to have occurred. When multi-billion dollar media operations were often wrong before the election, how could a relatively modest independent publisher see things that they failed to clearly report? If you stick with this series, you can learn the same skills. More in the reports that follow and in the days ahead. Until then, let's thank God for an overall good outcome. My thanks to all those who have followed this series and have acted accordingly.