How Political Donors Are Changing Statehouse News Reporting A growing share of statehouse reporting in state capitols across the country comes from conservative groups, blurring the lines between journalism and advocacy. Daniel C. Vock | November 2014
The talk radio segment started with the opening guitar riffs of Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City.” Then, over the first drumbeats of the 1987 rock anthem, came the deep, resonant voice of a male announcer, “Holding government accountable for how they spend our money, it’s Illinois Watchdog Radio: Watching the statehouse and cities across the state.”
Finally, host Benjamin Yount took the microphone. He playfully mimicked the driving sounds of the Guns N’ Roses guitar for a few seconds before launching in with his name, a Twitter handle and a number to text. Then, with a cadence common on conservative talk shows rapid succession of escalating questions, dramatic pauses a
NationofChange
The think tank industrial complex: Sowing doubt and disinformation
Without some kind of regulation, unaccountable think tanks will continue to obscure the truth about the issues they present to the public and offer often financially lucrative revolving doors for politicians and policymakers as they leave government service.
Think tanks, as defined by the Oxford dictionary, are, “a body of experts providing advice and ideas on specific political or economic problems”. Unrecognized by most people, in many ways these outfits help to shape public opinion about the most important issues of our time, almost always in favor of the status quo.
December 10, 2020 - 10:13am
For years, the funding behind the right-wing, pro-Trump publication The Federalist has been a total mystery. Many Twitter users have asked the website s leaders, repeatedly, Who funds The Federalist? only to be blocked by the likes of publisher Ben Domenech, co-founder Sean Davis, or senior editor Mollie Hemingway. (This author is blocked by all three.)
Last year, Hemingway characterized the question as a kind of a veiled threat and a clear, coordinated attempt to silence The Federalist.
However, a few months earlier, The Federalist s affiliated nonprofit, FDRLST Media Foundation, had been certified as a 501(c)(3) charity by the Internal Revenue Service, meaning that donors could begin making tax-deductible contributions to the foundation. If the donor was a nonprofit organization like a family foundation or trade association, its grants to the FDRLST Media Foundation would eventually be part of the public record. Hemingway is a director and gov