Big Brothers Buy... Big Media {Charles & David Koch}

[mojowork_n]

From today's Counterpunch

September 12, 2011

Big Brothers Buy in at Big Media
The Koch Whisperers

by PAM MARTENS

A CounterPunch Special Report

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/12/the-koch-whisperers/

"...according to tax records obtained through the assistance of www.GuideStar.org, Donors Capital sluiced over $130 million into the Kochtopi in 2008 and 2009, with massive sums going to fund “news bureaus” in dozens of states. (Apparently, as Brad Friedman exposed at Mother Jones recently, when Charles Koch stated at his secret Colorado bash in June of this year that the upcoming presidential campaign would be “the mother of all wars over the next 16 months,” he already had his boots on the ground in Donors Capital-funded newsrooms around the country.) Next to each notation of funding for a “news bureau” there frequently appears another line item that reads “for transparency project.” It takes an Orwellian brand of tartuffery to be running an ultra secretive slush fund and telling the IRS it’s for transparency projects....

...A review of documents and tax records for the dizzying, interconnected web of corporate front groups, frequently created, supported and influenced by Charles or David Koch, shows just how dangerous these groups espousing free markets and liberty have become to a free society. The game plan is to devalue the rights of actual citizens by seeking human voices dangling from a corporate marionette string, that might be willing for the right amount of cash incentive to broadcast the Orwellian reverse-speak: liberty means more liberty for corporations (corporate serfdom for real citizens); freedom means corporate freedom to privatize national resources, pollute the environment and fleece the consumer with impunity; free market means the freedom to draw a dark curtain around how the corporations are actually screwing us and stealing our liberty....

...The Koch brothers’ decision to create a nonprofit network dates back to 1977 when Charles Koch founded the Cato Institute, an organization the Koch foundations continue to fund....

It's not just the Kochtopi. There are other names, other astro-turf groups, and other funding sources one would have to trace.

Just before the recall elections here in Wisconsin, about a month ago, an investigative reporter at The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote a detailed look at just one of these "news bureaus." It's called, "Media Trackers." Their activities go beyond just issuing press releases and serving as a mouthpiece for conservative outlets like the Bradley Foundation. These agencies also perform "political advocacy work, such as filing complaints with regulators."

Full article:

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/127152603.html

[mojowork_n]

1. Found sort of an update, or follow-up, today

From the "finest news source" east of Minsk, the eXile:

http://exiledonline.com/when-it-comes-to-koch-apologists-slates-david-weigel-is-chairman-of-the-bored/

...Slate’s David Weigel is one of the few libertarian media figures who at least has had the courtesy to disclose, on occasion, his past relationships with Koch-funded outfits (Institute for Humane Studies, Reason Magazine…). But half-disclosures can be deceiving....

On yesterday’s breaking story from Mother Jones exposing the Kochs’ secretive meeting and the names on the list of their “Million-Dollar Donor’s Club,” Weigel laughed knowingly and dismissed the hullaballoo with the all-knowing sneer of a graying, grizzled veteran reporter: ...No surprise indeed. This is a classic example of the David Weigel Koch-Defense Strategy: Declare it’s “no surprise,” roll contemptuous all-knowing eyes at all the rest of us excitable novice reporters who clearly don’t “get it.” We should feel lame, we who are given to hysteria when we read about the Kochs and their billionaire friends’ anti-democracy arrogance and power, and their smarmy bigotry towards Obama (not to mention the appalling provincialism of their hate, right down to the Birther/Teabagger Muslim-baiting).

That’s “no surprise” to Weigel. And he wants us to think it’s no surprise too. So rather than focus attention on what every reporter and his dog knows is the real story–the rare glimpse of the oligarchy unplugged and unmediated, provided by the Mother Jones scoop–Weigel flaps his arms to distract his Slate readers: First, by claiming there’s no story in the Mother Jones scoop; and then, once that’s established, by pretending that a real ace investigative reporter (such as Weigel) looks at that material and spots the real buried lede here–the Anna Nicole Smith-Koch connection..."

Pretty sneaky, that... the Real Story is so much more photogenic. (Photo courtesy of foxnews.com, thank you very much.)

...almost identical to his {Wiegel's} quasi-jaded reaction a year ago, when details emerged about last year’s secret billionaires’ Koch Cartel meeting in Aspen. Most Americans who read about that secret Koch oligarchy-gathering were shocked; not Old Man Weigel, who’s seen it all, ‘n’ done it all:

“The Banality of the Koch Conspiracy”


• …Indeed, the Kochs’ “secret meeting” in June with investors and high-profile journalists was written about at the time by Tim Carney, who has another take on it today. The details of who shows up at such things are sort of interesting. The fact that these things happen is completely banal — elevating it is really just the left’s revenge for a decade or so of the right attempting to scandalize and criminalize the influence that George Soros and other billionaires have on Democrats.

It’s like reading a fashion blogger commenting on a hipster’s open-toed ankle-boots, only applied to the world of power and corruption. “Gawd, you’re so banal! You’re so two seasons ago, omigawd!”

Every time someone shines a light on the Kochs’ democracy-killing power and influence, the jaded 29-year-old-going-on-92-year-old David Weigel grows wearier and wearier... ...{When}the Nation and the Center for Media and Democracy published a powerful and in-depth investigation into another Koch-backed outfit, ALEC... ...most Americans were shocked to discover how deeply their state legislatures were in the pockets of corporate interests.... David Weigel shrugged and rolled his eyes...

...Yes, it’s the least surprising news ever. In the history of unsurprising news. Now, Anna Nicole Smith, a celebrity on drugs, mixing with a billionaire whose son did business with Charles Koch...now that's a story!