August 7, 2010

The Tribune-Review, My Old Friend

It's been a while since I've done a blog post like this.

Luckily for me, today's Tribune Review offers up so many tendrils that it's easy work to point out the extent of Richard Mellon Scaife's media influence.

Let me start with this editorial on the new START treaty. Needless to say, the braintrust doesn't like it but that's beside the point. We're looking at how deeply entwined the paper is with the pieces sources. And so when we see something like this in Richard Mellon Scaife's newspaper:
Even worse, The Heritage Foundation notes "the Kremlin's post-signing statement ... says that any 'qualitative' or 'quantitative' change to American missile defenses would lead to a possible withdrawal of the Russian federation from the treaty."
We should remember that foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife (the Sarah Scaife and Carthage Foundations) have funneled more than $23 million to the Heritage Foundation.

As I've written before, Scaife is even on the Board of Trustees for the Heritage Foundation.

Two things that never seem to get mentioned whenever the Trib uses the Heritage Foundation for source material.

But let's move on in the editorial:
Richard Perle, former assistant secretary of Defense for arms control, says this "dangerous, shortsighted policy" handicaps the modernization of America's aging nuclear arsenal.
Yes, they're quoting one of the architects of the illegal war in Iraq. But again, that's beside the point.

Richard Perle is affiliated with some of the most prominent conservative organizations around and as such is deeply entwined in Scaife money. For example:So that's $35.7 million in Scaife money.

So far. We're not done.

Take a look at Craig Smith's interview this week. It's with Richard A Levy and Smith describes him as:
The chairman of the Cato Institute's board of directors, he also sits on boards of the Institute for Justice, The Federalist Society and the George Mason University School of Law.
Ok so that's:By my math, that's somewhere around $43 million dollars in Richard Mellon Scaife money given to various think tanks that the editorial page at his newspaper is using for source material.

As I've said any number of times, the circle jerk continues at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

8 comments:

  1. Who funds the Commonwealth Foundation? I'm willing to bet Scaife's put a dime or two into that organization.

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  2. Gloria;

    According to mediamatters, Scaife's foundations have given about $2 million to the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives.

    So I guess you won your bet.

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  3. My (edited) input..

    .. the circle jerk continues at 2 Poltical Junkies concerning the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

    You guys are so predictable. If only you'd spend a proportinate amount of time and effort in looking at the PG (and all the other liberal rags) editorial AND reporting side for obvious liberal bias.. well, that would be something, wouldn't it?

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  4. CM;

    You are, of course, free to look into doing that yourself.

    Feel free.

    And let us know what you find.

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  5. according to mediamatters/soros....the other side of the heritage/scaife coin

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  6. Rich, so how is mediamatters and George Soros related to the Post Gazette? Not to mention that you have not actually connected Soros to Media Matters.

    CM, I believe you are missing the point (again). The issue is not simply bias. It is the Trib using sources such as the Heritage Foundation or an employee of the American Enterprise, and not disclosing that they having received support from the publisher of the Trib. The readers of the Trib deserve to know that the opinions of these specific sources might be influenced by that money.

    By comparison, the issue of liberal bias is nothing more than an attempt to distract and create a false equivalency. Wouldn't you agree?

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  7. Oh Eddie, Mr. Prime Minister, that one sentence wasn't that hard to understand!!

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  8. Rich, ... so how is mediamatters and George Soros related to the Post Gazette, financially, compared to the financial relationship Dayvoe has pointed out between Scaife (on the one side) and the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute (on the other side)?

    Honestly, I don't see how much more simple it can get.

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