While the Seattle Times receives another major bribe from Bill Gates, to cover "educational reform in K-12 and higher education"

Summary: The Gates Foundation's lobbying for privatisation of a public service (taxpayers-funded service circulating half a trillion dollars per year) finally comes to the attention of the "big boys" among education publications

Some Web sites, a certain proportion of which is Gates-bribed, hail Gates' involvement in the schools system like the agenda of privatisation is commendable and necessary. Bribes can really tilt coverage and seed deceiving 'reporting' (public relations). Are there any sites left which are not (yet) corrupted by the Gates propaganda machine? Well, it seems so.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, a highly-regarded site/newspaper, writes a polite set of articles about the Gates Foundation et al. Remember that some years ago we were mostly alone in criticising them and now it is becoming the norm because people are becoming better informed and Gates a controversial figure even when it comes to his pseudo 'charity' (set up after he committed serious crimes and then, consequently, spent a fortune on whitewashing/PR). The main question is, what took the "big boys" (prominent publications) so long to properly investigate and chastise Gates when it may already be too late to undo the damage? Well, according to one Gates-funded 'news' site, the Chronicle of Higher Education has been Gates-bribed itself, just like a lot of such sites. It's hard to dodge the bribes and this messenger is no exception. The Chronicle of Higher Education "received two contracts totaling about $850,000 from the foundation to support work on two stand-alone websites, College Completion and College Reality Check," according to Seattle Times (more on that later).

"The main question is, what took the "big boys" (prominent publications) so long to properly investigate and chastise Gates when it may already be too late to undo the damage?"While bringing patents to Africa (misreported in press releases) Gates is also bringing government-imposed monopolies like schooling into his own pocket. People in the field have had enough of that.

In a long, non-PR piece titled "The Gates Effect" there is clearly a lot of investigative journalism. To quote one of those approached for an insight, "I think foundations have an ability to set an agenda, to help clarify an agenda and rally momentum around an agenda."

For whose interests? Those foundations are front groups of plutocrats, they are not civil rights groups like the EFF, EPIC, or the ACLU.

"It's hard to dodge the bribes and this messenger is no exception."Is the author accusing people in the area for not thanking Gates? Not really, but it's a provocative summary which helps show how public opinion shifted in recent years. Gates' profit is increasing, so people must not mistake him for a 'giver'. Last year alone he made more money (gains) than all the education 'giving' (combined) by a factor of 1:15. In other words, all the money he ever 'gave' (lobbied) to 'education' is just a little fraction of what he made last year alone. Something here just doesn't compute, does it? His investment in agenda and lobbying should not be described as "giving" or charity. It is an insult to those who do real charitable things, at great expense to themselves (not to enrich themselves or to make themselves famous).

Here is another article from this series. To quote the opening parts:

How Gates Shapes State Higher-Education Policy

Over the past several years, lawmakers in dozens of states have passed laws restricting remedial college courses and tying appropriations to graduation rates. The changes have been advanced by an unusual alliance of private foundations and state policy makers who are shaping higher-education strategies in profound ways.

Valerie Strauss, who is never too shy to criticise Gates, comments on it under the headline "Bill Gates expands influence — and money — into higher education". To quote her analysis: "Then Gates, believing in the power of “data” to drive instruction and the notion that everything is measurable, plowed hundreds of million of dollars into experiments to develop controversial teacher assessment systems that link jobs and pay to test scores. He also put money into a project to videotape teachers to help them see how they do their job, spent at least $150 million to help the Common Core State Standards initiative, and provided $100 million to build a controversial student database.

"Of course people who agree with his reforms are delighted with his philanthropy. But plenty of others are very concerned that a private citizen can wield so much influence on public policy because he was talented and lucky enough to become impossibly rich."

Here is more from her:

The Gates Foundation also sent me a piece about what it says are erroneous reports that Gates was pushing a $5 billion plan to videotape teachers in every classroom in the country as part of an effort for teachers to see how they perform.

Ki Mae Heussner says that "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $472 million on higher education but, according to a report, it’s accumulating critics along with its influence."

“That is what Gates bribes newspapers and blogs for, at the expense of about $300,000,000 per year (they call it "advocacy" rather than "bribing the media").”High education what? Lobbying, which is not charity at all. Watch the Gates-funded (since years ago [1, 2]) Seattle Times (Katherine Long in this case) responding poorly to "A well-respected national newspaper that covers higher education" (can't deny that). It says that the "package of stories... describes the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as having an outsized influence on higher-education policy, one that narrowly focuses on programs that lead to short-term employability."

Not really. It has nothing to do with employment. They are printing some Gates talking points, showing their loyalty to Sugar Daddy Gates. That is what Gates bribes newspapers and blogs for, at the expense of about $300,000,000 per year (they call it "advocacy" rather than "bribing the media"). It's what we have come to know as the Gates propaganda machine, which is massive. More people need to challenge this malicious machinery that's designed to deceive.

It seems clear that the Seattle Times, which in this case is being used as a platform to quote Gates' apologists, recently received another massive bribe from Gates. It even admits this by writing: "The Seattle Times recently received a grant from Solutions Journalism Network to explore some of the vexing issues of educational reform in K-12 and higher education, and to write about potential solutions. The Gates Foundation is a major funder of Solutions Journalism Network, and provided much of the money for the grant."

Thanks for at least admitting being bribed by proxy, with the goal of pumping out propaganda with a clear agenda echoing Gates' business model. These bribes are always being characterised this way (even when The Guardian and the BBC receive these Gates bribes). Today's media is enormously corrupted and one just needs to follow the money in order to know who it's designed to serve. ⬆