Posted on 05/12/2011 11:27:50 AM PDT by kcvl
Editor's note: This is the first of a two part series on George Soros and the media.
When liberal investor George Soros gave $1.8 million to National Public Radio , it became part of the firestorm of controversy that jeopardized NPR’s federal funding. But that gift only hints at the widespread influence the controversial billionaire has on the mainstream media. Soros, who spent $27 million trying to defeat President Bush in 2004, has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.
Prominent journalists like ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists' ethical code stating: “avoid all conflicts real or perceived.”
This information is part of an upcoming report by the Media Research Centers Business & Media Institute which has been looking into George Soros and his influence on the media.
The investigative reporting start-up ProPublica is a prime example. ProPublica, which recently won its second Pulitzer Prize, initially was given millions of dollars from the Sandler Foundation to “strengthen the progressive infrastructure” – “progressive” being the code word for very liberal. In 2010, it also received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from the Open Society Foundations. In case you wonder where that money comes from, the OSF website is www.soros.org. It is a network of more than 30 international foundations, mostly funded by Soros, who has contributed more than $8 billion to those efforts.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
One more thing: a 14-person Journalism Advisory Board, stacked with CNN’s David Gergen and representatives from top newspapers, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster. Several are working journalists, including:
• Jill Abramson, a managing editor of The New York Times;
• Kerry Smith, the senior vice president for editorial quality of ABC News;
• Cynthia A. Tucker, the editor of the editorial page of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cos you’d have to rely on the new orgs to tell the story, silly
And the news orgs are paid to say, “Fox Sux.”
When so-called journalists decide what it news, it’s not too surprising that they don’t include their own deficiencies when evaluating story content.
Journalism for the most part....ended in the 1980s. What you see now is mostly wannabe journalists who have lost their way and pretend to be journalists.
Open Society Foundations - Baltimore
Board of Directors
Date: February 9, 2011
William C. Clarke, III, Chair
Former Executive Vice President of Research, Campbell & Company, Inc.
Edward C. Bernard
Vice Chairman, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.
Taylor Branch
Author
Eddie C. Brown
President & CEO (Founder), Brown Capital Management
Deborah W. Callard
Former Executive Director of The Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine
Suzanne F. Cohen
President, The Nathan and Suzanne Cohen Foundation
Andre M. Davis
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Marilynn K. Duker
President, The Shelter Group
Sherrilyn A. Ifill
Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law
Joseph T. Jones Jr.
President/CEO, Center for Urban Families
Will J. Jordan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, College of Education, Temple University
Susan P. Leviton
Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law
Anne S. Perkins
Community Leader
Otis Rolley, III (On Leave of Absence for 2011)
Senior Manager, Urban Policy Development
Robin Williams Wood
Former Deputy Director, Baltimore Safe and Sound Campaign
Emeriti Trustees
Clinton Bamberger, Esq.
Emeritus Professor, University of Maryland School of Law
Founding National Director of the Legal Services Program of the United States Office of Economic Opportunity
Past Board Members
Michael A. Gaines, Sr.
Senior Vice President, The ROC Realty Group
Mireille Grangenois
Former Vice President, Marketing and Interactive Media, The Baltimore Sun
Carla D. Hayden, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Enoch Pratt Free Library
Donald A. Manekin
Managing Member, Seawall Development Company
Ioanna T. Morfessis, Ph.D.
Founder and President, IO.INC
Herbert J. Sturz
Founding Chairman, The After-School Corporation, New York City; Senior Adviser, Open Society Institute
David Vlahov, Ph.D.
Director, New York Academy of Medicine Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies
Michael R. Ward
Co-Founder and Partner, Nobska Group
What We Do
The Open Society Institute–Baltimore focuses on the root causes of three intertwined problems in our city and state: drug addiction, an overreliance on incarceration, and obstacles that impede youth in succeeding inside and out of the classroom. We also support a growing corps of social entrepreneurs committed to underserved populations in Baltimore.
Who We Are
OSI-Baltimore is part of the Open Society Foundations, a network of international foundations established by philanthropist George Soros. As part of the Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs, we are working to build a vibrant society that invites all people to participate fully in civic, economic, and cultural life. We encourage critical debate and respect diverse opinions.
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/baltimore/about
Challenge Before Us
Until 2005, OSI-Baltimore was funded solely by George Soros, whose contribution of more than $60 million to the city is the single largest outside philanthropic investment in Baltimore’s history for work to help its most vulnerable citizens. Because of this investment, OSI-Baltimore has been a significant contributor to many efforts to support lasting change in this city.
We now actively seek other investors to support our future work. Soros will match 1:1 all gifts. All funds raised from our investors go directly into four key initiatives as support from George Soros covers our administrative costs and overhead. Give a gift.
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/baltimore/about
Directors and Personnel
George Soros, Chair
Aryeh Neier, President
Stewart J. Paperin, Executive Vice President
Annette Laborey, Vice President
Gara LaMarche, FORMER Vice President and Director of U.S. Programs
Ricardo Castro, General Counsel
Robert Kushen, Director of International Operations
Laura Silber, Director of Public Affairs and Senior Policy Advisor
Maija Arbolino, Chief Financial Officer and Director of Finance
Stephanie Steele, Director of International Human Resources
Anthony Richter, Associate Director and Director of the Central Eurasia Project/Middle East and North Africa Initiative
Yalan Teng, Chief Information Officer
Stephen D. Gutmann, Director of Accounting Policy and Audit Services
Trustees (U.S. Committee)
George Soros (Chair)
Aryeh Neier (President)
Leon Botstein
Geoffrey Canada
Joan B. Dunlop
Lani Guinier
David J. Rothman
Thomas M. Scanlon, Jr.
John G. Simon
Jonathan Soros
Herbert Sturz
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Open_Society_Institute
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Related SourceWatch Resources
Disability Rights Fund
George Soros
Soros Foundations
Globalization
Eurasia Foundation OSI provided funding
Open Society Education Programs - South East Europe
Top 100 of The New Establishment
Arthur C. Helton
Anna Lefer Kuhn
Adam Culbreath is the program officer for the Soros Justice Fellowships
Leonard Noisette - Director - Criminal Justice Fund (2011)
Tawanda Mutasah - Director of Programs (2011)
Fiona Napier - International Advocacy Director (2011)
Ann Beeson - joined the Open Society Institute in June 2007 as the executive director of U.S. Programs
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Open_Society_Institute
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In 2003, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wrote in the foreword of Soros’ book The Alchemy of Finance:
George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become ‘open societies,’ open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but – more important – tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is critical of Soros’s effect on financial markets.
“[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is ‘Soroi.’”
Insider trading conviction
In 1988, he was asked to join a takeover attempt of the French bank Société Générale. He declined to participate in the bid but later bought a number of shares in the company. French authorities began an investigation in 1989, and in 2002 a French court ruled that it was insider trading, a felony conviction as defined under French securities laws, and fined him $2.3 million, which was the amount that he made using the insider information.
Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing and said news of the takeover was public knowledge.
His insider trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14, 2006. In December 2006, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that the 14-year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing.
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According to National Review the Open Society Institute gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart, the lawyer who has defended alleged terrorists in court and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for “providing material support for a terrorist conspiracy” via a press conference for a client. An OSI spokeswoman said “it appeared to us at that time that there was a right-to-counsel issue worthy of our support.”
On October 26, 2010, Soros donated $1 million, the largest donation in the campaign, to the Drug Policy Alliance to fund Proposition 19, that would have legalized marijuana in the state of California if it had passed in the November 2, 2010 elections.
The Project on Death in America, active from 2001 to 2003, was one of the Open Society Institute’s projects, which sought to “understand and transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement.” In 1994, Soros delivered a speech in which he reported that he had offered to help his mother, a member of the Hemlock Society, commit suicide. In the same speech, he also endorsed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, the campaign for which he helped fund.
Why don’t we hear about it? Because the MSM is not ABOUT to disclose it and elected Republicans are to GUTLESS to bring it up.
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