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That's certainly not true. NPR criticizes Bill Gates often as part of the "celebrity billionaire" group, and recently had a story about his affair with an emplo

by pionar 5y ago

That's certainly not true. NPR criticizes Bill Gates often as part of the "celebrity billionaire" group, and recently had a story about his affair with an employee.

olivermarks 5y ago
'NPR’s funding from Gates “was not a factor in why or how we did the story,” reporter Pam Fessler says, adding that her reporting went beyond the voices quoted in her article. The story, nevertheless, is one of hundreds NPR has reported about the Gates Foundation or the work it funds, including myriad favorable pieces written from the perspective of Gates or its grantees.' https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-funding.php https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-fu...
- Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
  When you donate billions, you help lots of people who may then be honest about that. What is surprising to you that beneficiaries of philanthropy are happy to report and promote philanthropy? It's not like they try to cover up his "sins", or that the channel doesn't report on the latest gossip about his marriage just because it's "news".
  - olivermarks 5y ago
    It's a great article, did you read it? 'Twenty years ago, journalists scrutinized Bill Gates’s initial foray into philanthropy as a vehicle to enrich his software company, or a PR exercise to salvage his battered reputation following Microsoft’s bruising antitrust battle with the Department of Justice. Today, the foundation is most often the subject of soft profiles and glowing editorials describing its good works. '
dredmorbius 5y ago
It is fair to say that funder bias is a significant concern in the not-for-profit world, including in public broadcasting. There's been open mainstream speculation of that "PBS sold its soul" to the Koch Brothers: As David Sirota, the author of the PandoDaily expose, wrote in its aftermath, PBS doesn’t stand for “Public Broadcasting Service” anymore. As it becomes more addicted to big-bucks donors, it risks becoming the Plutocrat Broadcasting Service. https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-xpm-2014-feb-17-la-fi-mh-how-pbs-soldr-20140217-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-xpm-2014-feb-17-... Tiny Spark is the podcast of Nonprofits Quarterly, and has dedicated numerous episodes to the question of funder influence. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/podcasts/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/podcasts/ Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, and Robert W. McChesney are voices on the left who have called out corporate / fundraiser bias on the part of PBS, NPR, CPB, and other public broadcasters in the US. McChesney notes: Public broadcasting today is really a system of nonprofit commercial broadcasting, serving a sliver of the population. What we need is a system of real public broadcasting, with no advertising, one that accepts no grants from corporations or private bodies, one that serves the entire population, not merely those who have high-brow tastes and disposable income to contribute during pledge drives. https://www.lehigh.edu/~jl0d/J246-02/oligopoly.html https://www.lehigh.edu/~jl0d/J246-02/oligopoly.html

by pionar 5y ago

That's certainly not true. NPR criticizes Bill Gates often as part of the "celebrity billionaire" group, and recently had a story about his affair with an employee.

olivermarks 5y ago

'NPR’s funding from Gates “was not a factor in why or how we did the story,” reporter Pam Fessler says, adding that her reporting went beyond the voices quoted in her article. The story, nevertheless, is one of hundreds NPR has reported about the Gates Foundation or the work it funds, including myriad favorable pieces written from the perspective of Gates or its grantees.' https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-funding.php https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-fu...

Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
When you donate billions, you help lots of people who may then be honest about that. What is surprising to you that beneficiaries of philanthropy are happy to report and promote philanthropy? It's not like they try to cover up his "sins", or that the channel doesn't report on the latest gossip about his marriage just because it's "news".
- olivermarks 5y ago
  It's a great article, did you read it? 'Twenty years ago, journalists scrutinized Bill Gates’s initial foray into philanthropy as a vehicle to enrich his software company, or a PR exercise to salvage his battered reputation following Microsoft’s bruising antitrust battle with the Department of Justice. Today, the foundation is most often the subject of soft profiles and glowing editorials describing its good works. '

dredmorbius 5y ago

It is fair to say that funder bias is a significant concern in the not-for-profit world, including in public broadcasting. There's been open mainstream speculation of that "PBS sold its soul" to the Koch Brothers: As David Sirota, the author of the PandoDaily expose, wrote in its aftermath, PBS doesn’t stand for “Public Broadcasting Service” anymore. As it becomes more addicted to big-bucks donors, it risks becoming the Plutocrat Broadcasting Service. https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-xpm-2014-feb-17-la-fi-mh-how-pbs-soldr-20140217-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-xpm-2014-feb-17-... Tiny Spark is the podcast of Nonprofits Quarterly, and has dedicated numerous episodes to the question of funder influence. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/podcasts/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/podcasts/ Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, and Robert W. McChesney are voices on the left who have called out corporate / fundraiser bias on the part of PBS, NPR, CPB, and other public broadcasters in the US. McChesney notes: Public broadcasting today is really a system of nonprofit commercial broadcasting, serving a sliver of the population. What we need is a system of real public broadcasting, with no advertising, one that accepts no grants from corporations or private bodies, one that serves the entire population, not merely those who have high-brow tastes and disposable income to contribute during pledge drives. https://www.lehigh.edu/~jl0d/J246-02/oligopoly.html https://www.lehigh.edu/~jl0d/J246-02/oligopoly.html