April 25, 2007

Media Matters for America plays word games re: their funding

Recently Bill O'Reilly "disclosed" the funding of the group Media Matters for America (link to video). The segment includes a chart showing money flowing from George Soros to the Open Society Institute, Democracy Alliance, MoveOn, and the Center for American Progress. The latter three are current or former donors to MMFA; the first is/was a donor to the Tides Foundation, which is/was a donor to MMFA.

Now, "A.I." (presumably Andrew Ironside) offers "O'Reilly purported to chart an intricate web leading to "vile propaganda outfit" Media Matters" [1]:

As previously indicated, Soros has never given money to Media Matters, either directly or through another organization. If he wanted to fund Media Matters, he or Open Society Institute (OSI), a grant-making foundation he established in 1993 to conduct his philanthropy, could simply write a check directly to Media Matters, as he and OSI do to numerous entities.

That's a truly Clintonian statement. Soros money has obviously flowed to MMFA through intermediaries such as MoveOn. Soros may not have explicitly told MoveOn to give part of the money he gave them to MMFA, but one wonders whether they would do something that he would disagree with.

The paragraph above links to this brief statement that doesn't even go as far [2]:

Media Matters has never received funding from progressive philanthropist George Soros.

Which, again, may be true if the money went through intermediaries.

And, of course, back in March 2005, MMFA stopped disavowing connections to Soros-affiliated groups.

What exactly are they afraid of?

[1] mediamatters.org/items/200704240003
[2] mediamatters.org/items/200704130012

Posted to Miscellania at April 25, 2007 11:10 AM