-By Warner Todd Huston
On the heels of this Summer’s Old Media attack of News Corp’s donation of $1 million to the GOP, we discover that billionaire Bill Gates of Microsoft fame has given $1.5 million directly to ABC News so that they’ll cover his personal “news” issue; health conditions of the poor.
Gates has been spreading his money around in more traditional media buys over the last year or so, too. He spent $3.5 million to start a TV production company that is working with PBS to report on global health issues and he’s also spent millions buying newspapers to keep them afloat. Additionally Gates has donated money to journalism schools and other media operations.
But this direct donation to ABC News is a different animal than the other media related spending that Gates has done. This is a direct donation of money to ABC News to buy their attention for Bill Gates’s personal interests. ABC is supposed to be a self contained, independent news agency that funds its own reports governed under its own authority. Gates’s donation really brings this status into question.
Continue reading “
Bill Gates Buys Attention of ABC News?”