01.26.10
Rich Uncle Bill Comes to Visit the New York Times
Summary: The public relations tour of Bill Gates continues this week as he rallies for support from the popular press, which puts in print anything he says
FEEL as you may about the New York Times, but coverage of Microsoft and of Free software over there is rather poor and it is easy to see why [1, 2, 3, 4]. We wrote about this subject many times before . Among the writers of the New York Times there are authors like Steve Ballmer, who was also asked about buying the publication over a year ago (the New York Times has enormous debt).
It is not unusual for Microsoft to buy publications [1, 2]. Bill Gates sometimes pays for them using his financial vehicle that he calls a “foundation”. He gives money to newspapers, which in turn feel obliged not to criticise his criminal activities and instead offer a platform to his reputation laundering. Some days ago we wrote about his influence in the Huffington Post [1, 2, 3] and now we find him traveling to the New York Times for some self glorification and Google bashing. It goes into New York Times blogs and maybe it will come out in print, as well.
Bill Gates dropped by The New York Times on Monday to discuss his full-time job as head of the Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropy, especially its work in global health and development.
[...]
Mr. Gates declared himself unimpressed and a bit perplexed by Google’s recent threat to drop its search business in China to protest Chinese censorship of search after attacks apparently intended to spy on Gmail accounts of human-rights activists. “They’ve done nothing and gotten a lot of credit for it,” Mr. Gates said.
Just a few points:
- Anyone who actually looked inside the Gates Foundation would not label it “the world’s largest philanthropy”
- Gates’ opinion on China should be treated as controversial and unusual because of his special relations with the Chinese regime, which we wrote about many times before (e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4])
The post above was actually brought to our attention by FurnaceBoy, who added: “Today in crime: Über-thief Gates visits NYT. When money talks, they write it down”
Also quoted: “Mr. Gates was on his way to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he is expected to announce an expansion of the foundation’s vaccine programs in poor nations.”
And those who actually investigate what Gates and his pharmaceutical patents (which he is an investor in) really do [1, 2, 3] will be capable of escaping the echo chamber and actually report accurately, as opposed to spread the love of the Gates PR machine. █
“Gates has created a huge blood-buying operation that only cares about money, not about people.”
–AIDS organisation manager in China, last month
