George Soros' Millions Buying 'Political Reporters' For NPR

by: warner todd huston | published: 10 19, 2010

The left loves to go wild claiming that Ruppert Murdock, a famous conservative, owns a few news outlets. The left is also aghast that well-known righty Roger Ailes guides Fox News. Ailes’s ideology makes of his network a compromised product, they claim. It's all a travesty of "news," and "proof" that those agencies are contaminated by right-wing ideology say lefty detractors. So, with the news that George Soros is buying one hundred political "reporters" for National Public Radio (NPR), one waits with bated breath for the left to decry the fact that a famous anti-American leftist is buying and influencing the "news."

One will likely wait in vain, too.

In fact, The New York Times doesn't even mention the left-wing ideology of the foundation that is supplying $1.8 million to NPR so it can hire political reporters across the country.

The left-wing Open Society Foundations is donating the large sum to NPR for a project being called "Impact of Government." The project is planning to add at least 100 reporters across the country to cover local state house politics to fill the holes left by the firing of so many local reporters due to the contraction in the field of journalism over the last decade.

One might look at this plan and imagine that it isn't such a bad idea. If states have lost reporters ready to hold local politicians accountable why is it so bad for $1.8 million to be spent to fill that gap? But in the NYT piece one can see why this donation should raise eyebrows instead of making folks feel at ease that the plan is merely helping fill a reporting gap.

Ms. Schiller said the journalists would not be part of typical statehouse coverage, but instead would work on enterprise journalism that looks at how state government decisions play out over years, and extend beyond a single state’s borders.

What exactly does "enterprise journalism" mean? This sure smacks of agenda journalism as opposed to mere reporting, doesn't it? And even if that isn't the intent, the rhetoric here is suspicious.

But what makes this all even more suspicious is the source of the $1.8 million donation. The Open Society Foundations was founded by well-known anti-American George Soros. Yet, nowhere in the news is this made clear to readers.

One might recall the hullabaloo that was raised when it was revealed that News Corp, owner of Fox News, had donated one million dollars to Republicans for this election cycle. It was the end of the world as far as the left was concerned. It was "proof" that Fox could not be trusted.

Yet, here we have George Soros buying reporters for NPR, the same Soros who has an extremely left-wing agenda that he has been pushing on the world for decades. After all, if the assumption that conservatives owning Fox makes its news slanted, shouldn't the same logic dictate that anything Soros owns reflects his ideology? Shouldn't we assume that NPR's new reporters will be left-wing hacks bought and paid for by one of the richest, most active, most extreme left-wing activists in the world?

So what is the difference between a left-wing billionaire buying 100 reporters for NPR and Fox News being owned by conservative owners? Why has the Old Media establishment completely ignored the extremist agenda of the foundation making such a large donation to NPR? Why isn't NPR to be suspected of being a left-wing mouthpiece now?

The answer to this question can only be that the Old Media establishment is already bought and paid for by the far left and would never raise questions that might reflect badly on a left-wing agenda. Only conservatives need “outing” as far as the Old Media is concerned.

That George Soros owns NPR like this? Well, that’s just a little secret between you and me. (Originally posted at Andrew Breitbart's BigJournalism.com)

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