Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gates Monitor: January 2011 on Buying the Press, Shaping Public Opinion

Business headline

Summary: Articles and posts from around January, in particular ones that show the Gates Foundation's influence over the press it paid

TECHRIGHTS has covered the Gates Foundation for several years. At the end of last year we came to the stage where we basically made similar observations and merely produced/shared (through accumulation and organisation) new evidence to support and further validate all the claims. In some sense, we had already gathered a body of work sufficient to explain a pattern of operation which not only characterises Gates but a few other plutocrats too (there is overlap and collaboration at the top). They use similar tricks and the public needs to be equipped with critical skills to spot the public relations and antagonise the fairy tales/misdirections.



Bill Gates is one of the largest owners of the press, putting aside people like Rupert Murdoch whose main business is the press. It's a business. News is about making money, not informing the public. Here are articles from January of this year. They hopefully show how Gates bends coverage that people are exposed to on a daily basis in many languages.

Degrees from Gates: News media covering global health are #Gatesfunded

ABC News will debut a $6 million, year-long reporting project on global health tonight called “Be the Change: Save a Life.” The Gates Foundation gave the news organization $1.5 million for the project that kicks off with Diane Sawyer on 20/20 but also will be on Good Morning America, Nightline and the Evening News.

Also this week, Public Radio International debuted a series on rationing health care around the world. It also was funded by the Gates Foundation. NPR, PBS NewsHour, The Guardian, AllAfrica and Viewchange.org all received funding in the last year or so from the Gates Foundation.

Will the Global Health Hub be the only media source left not receiving Gates funding? Oh wait, we volunteer, and my salary comes from a Gates grant so technically, we too, are indirectly Gates-funded.


Warren Buffett to Retire From Board of Washington Post He Joined in 1974 (is this related to the Melinda scandal?)

Billionaire Warren Buffett is retiring from the board of Washington Post Co., the publishing company in which his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is the largest shareholder.

Buffett, who joined the board in 1974, will remain a director until the end of his term in May and won’t seek re- election, Washington Post said today in a statement distributed by Business Wire. He’ll continue to consult with the company.


Gates and Media Funding

Would this fly in another industry? Can you imagine a Citibank-financed investigative series on the financial industry? That’s probably a bad example for several reasons, including the Citibank-Gates comparison and the fact that the financial industry is not underreported. I’m having a hard time thinking of a comparable example: an industry that doesn’t get much news coverage, where a big actor funded the media — if you can think of an example, please let me know.

Obviously this induces a bias in the coverage. To say otherwise is pretty much indefensible to me. Think of it this way: if Noam Chomsky had a multi-billion dollar foundation that gave grants to the media to increase news coverage of international development, but did not have specific editorial control, would that not still bias the resulting coverage? Would an organization a) get those grants if it were not already likely to do the cover the subject with at last a gentle, overall bias towards Chomsky’s point of view, or b) continue to get grants for new projects if they widely ridiculed Chomsky’s approach? It doesn’t have to be Chomsky — take your pick of someone with clearly identifiable positions on international issues, and you get the same picture. Do the communications staffers at the Gates Foundation need to personally review the story lines for this sort of bias to creep in? Of course not.

Which matters more: the bias or the increased coverage? For now I lean towards increased coverage, but this is up for debate. It’s really important that the funding be disclosed (as I understand it has been). It would also be nice if there was enough public demand for coverage of international development that the media covered it in all its complexity and difficulty and nuance without needing support from a foundation, but that’s not the world we live in for now. And maybe the funded coverage will ultimately result in more discussion of the structural and systemic roots of international inequality, rather than just “quick fixes.”


Tachi of the Gates Foundation predicts that technology is going to make everything all right (The Guardian is now funded by the Gates Foundation, so it stopped criticising the Gates Foundation, instead posting its self-promotional PR)

Tachi writes in the Guardian (where else?) that polio will be eradicated, vaccine prices will decrease, and their availability will increase. These are accurate and safe predictions, assuming civil wars don't get in the way.


Seattle Times kills Business of Giving; long live Kristi Heim!

That seems to be the reaction I get from people who have yet to learn that one of our region’s — and, I dare say, the nation’s — best sources of news about the Gates Foundation, PATH, Global Partnerships, the wacky world of microfinance and Seattle’s rapidly growing influence in the do-good industry is kaput.


The Gates Foundation funded PBS's controversial 'coverage' of Cuba (Gates Foundation knows everything best)

The Gates Foundation funded a commiebashing. Is PBS 'public' any longer or does the Gates Foundation sponsor it and thus 'own' it?


Philanthrocapitalism or Paternalism in New Guise?



But let's bring this into the present. Why have I had to endure a klugey operating system with lousy file and memory management for nigh onto thirty years? Why have I had to pay outrageous amounts for every version of said operating system and put up with trojans and viruses and worms that are only possible because one operating system has captured 75% of the market? The homogeneity of our computing infrastructure is probably the single greatest threat to national security. And for it, we all paid monopoly prices, the proceeds of which are now being spent at the discretion of Gates and his foundation. Am I better off because of his philanthropy than I would have been paying lower prices, retaining some consumer surplus, having more market choices? If some rich philanthropist, either alone or in concert with a non-profit or a government agency, is making decisions about how to spend the "extra" money he gained from me, how is that different from the government making decisions about how to spend the tax revenues it gains from me? Do not both usurp my economic power and autonomy?


WHERE IS MELINDA GATES GOING WITH BREASTFEEDING?

Here is a YouTube video of a 13-minute excerpt of the 60 Minutes video interview of Melinda Gates in which they attribute high infant mortality to midwives using non-sterile instruments and say that they lay newborns on cold, dirt floors. Now, supposedly these rates have improved since they have taught the midwives to use sterile razor blades to cut the umbilical cord and they've taught them to wrap the newborn in a blanket, and infant mortality has gone down.


Let me tell you about the very rich

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."


The Rise of the New Global Elite

That’s not the case for much of today’s super-elite. “Fat cats who owe it to their grandfathers are not getting all of the gains,” Peter Lindert told me. “A lot of it is going to innovators this time around. There is more meritocracy in Bill Gates being at the top than the Duke of Bedford.” Even Emmanuel Saez, who is deeply worried about the social and political consequences of rising income inequality, concurs that a defining quality of the current crop of plutocrats is that they are the “working rich.” He has found that in 1916, the richest 1 percent of Americans received only one-fifth of their income from paid work; in 2004, that figure had risen threefold, to 60 percent.

[...]

Not all plutocrats, of course, are created equal. Apple’s visionary Steve Jobs is neither the moral nor the economic equivalent of the Russian oligarchs who made their fortunes by brazenly seizing their country’s natural resources. And while the benefits of the past decade’s financial “innovations” are, as Volcker noted, very much in question, many plutocratic fortunes—especially in the technology sector—have been built on advances that have broadly benefited the nation and the world. That is why, even as the TARP-recipient bankers have become objects of widespread anger, figures such as Jobs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett remain heroes.


Unconventional Wisdom



Together, Slim, Gates, Buffett, and Ambani control more wealth than the world's poorest 57 countries. The danger is that while we have a global economy that knows how to concentrate money and power in an ever smaller set of hands, we have no robust mechanism to alert us to the injustice, dangers, and instability that come along with this package. Someday, to our peril, the poor will find their own way to remind us.


Together, Slim, Gates, Buffett, and Ambani control more wealth than the world's poorest 57 countries.

Reminder: Submit Your Ideal TEDxChange Lineup and Win a Free Exclusive Invite (buying one's own TED to affect public opinion)

Recent Techrights' Posts

Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
 
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 02/07/2025: Deep Microsoft Cuts, Macron Speaks to Putin
Links for the day
Confirmed: Microsoft Shutdowns Today, Not Only Mass Layoffs
"The Initiative is the only studio closure planned today, although some other teams have seen cuts of varying degrees."
Microsoft Windows Nosedives in Switzerland While GNU/Linux Leaps Above 6%
sooner or later they might have to make the move anyway
Anxiety at Microsoft: Many Workers (Maybe Over 10,000) Still Don't Know They're Being Laid Off Just Before US Independence Day
"Has anyone gotten the notification yet?"
Microsoft "Declined to Say How Many People Would be Laid Off," According to Associated Press
Some other prominent publications said they reached out for comment from Microsoft and received none
The X War is Over and the "Wayland People" Lost
People will gravitate towards what works for them
20 Years Since My Thesis
It's still online
GNU/Linux is Replacing Windows in Laptops/Desktops
The world will move on while Windows and Microsoft shrink
Now Comes the Expected Webspam, Framing Microsoft Layoffs as "Hey Hi" Success Story (False Marketing That's Piggybacking the Layoffs)
falsely marketed as "intelligence"
Hungary: Microsoft Windows Sinks to 17% "Market Share"
In many nations in Europe it seems like the era of Windows is coming to an end
Microsoft Media Operatives and Bill Epsteingate-Funded Sites Said Microsoft Lays Off 9,000, But Other Sites Say More (Including 2,300 in Redmond Alone)
We might never know the real number/s (Microsoft will keep the cards close to its chest) until there are leakers or unless there are whistleblowers with hard proof
Microsoft Layoffs in Spain, Portugal Record for GNU/Linux
in Portugal we see GNU/Linux at record levels
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in the United States of America
Windows is trending down
Yes, Microsoft is Again Using Its Favourite Liars (Stenographers) to Seed Fake Layoff Numbers, Much Lower Than What's Really Happening
It is Jordan Novet again, just as we predicted
Will Microsoft Once Again Choose Its Favourite Liar to Spread Lies About Today's Layoffs, Quickly to be Replicated and Spread by Slopfarms?
What lies is Microsoft briefing its media moles to tell today?
"OSS Fetishism" Wins After Ferenc Zsolt Szabó Ousted (Microsoft Mole From Capgemini)
Many people said 2025 would be the "year of Linux on the desktop"
There is Nothing That LLMs Can Offer Honest People
LLMs are a passing fad; they're expensive and offer poor "value" for energy; they usually offer no value at all unless you are a cheater, spammer, and liar
What statCounter Shows Today Helps Explain Microsoft's Helplessness, Mass Layoffs
Since many US journalists are already away on holiday almost nobody will dare ask the difficult questions or give a voice to whistleblowers
Microsoft Gets the Chop in South America
The notion of digital sovereignty gained a lot of popularity
Europe Has an 'Exit'
Let's see what happens the rest of this year
El Presidente Talks, Canada Walks (Away From Windows)
GNU/Linux rising
Cities in France and Germany Move to GNU/Linux and statCounter Detects Big Differences
Will governments lead by example?
Microsoft Lost Its Foothold in Africa
How many of these are "old" Windows machines converted to GNU/Linux? Probably a lot.
Led by Europe, GNU/Linux Makes Big Gains This Month
statCounter started showing new/fresh stats
Links 02/07/2025: Massive Microsoft Layoffs About to Commence, "Tesla's Robotaxi Program Is Failing"
Links for the day
Why the Microsoft People Who Started SLAPPs Against Techrights Could Very Well be Sent Back to Prison
White-collar crime is also a crime
The Company Run by Former (and Last Proper) Red Hat CEO, Promoting Microsoft Mono, Faces Shock as Senior Partner Jailed for 33 Sexual Offenses Including Pedophilia
"As reported by The Oxford Mail in April 2025, the offenses include rape, sexual assault, engaging in non-penetrative activity with a child, and more."
Microsoft Lost 29% of Windows Users, Based on Microsoft, Now Come Massive Layoffs
Microsoft collapse is today
Slopwatch: Google Serves to People Linux Slop and Linux FUD (Made by Bots)
"Slopwatch" finds it difficult to ignore Google's role in encouraging LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 01, 2025
"Wayland People" Behave Like the Googles and Microsofts of This World
Published yesterday by Igor Ljubuncic
Gemini Links 02/07/2025: Arch Linux and Fulfillment in Gemini
Links for the day