Gates Foundation has spent $250M on journalism | Hacker News Reader

Gates Foundation has spent $250M on journalism

cjr.org

31 pointsceilingcorner26 comments

I hope people don’t forget yellow journalism with William Randolph Hearst.

Marijuana was highly scrutinized in his publications because hemp (relative to marijuana) competed with his paper mills that he owned.

Low and behold, marijuana and hemp become illegal to grow in the United States because of the fear of people getting high.

I think alcohol is more intoxicating than cannabis.

Is paying people to write favorable stories "journalism" or "propaganda"? Did we just formally merge those two in 1968 and I just missed the announcement?

How about "lobbying journalism"? Tho, I've read that in the US lobbying isn't seen as bad as elsewhere around the world.

Lobbying is just corruption justified

propaganda

Yes it is. It is also corruption.

Not only journalism and propaganda, but also academia, literature, arts, etc.

This reminds me of when the Bill Gates' foundation had The Guardian publish a piece originally titled "Child labour doesn’t have to be exploitation – it gave me life skills" [0], a title they later had to change. It appalls me that it's still online.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/nov/06/c...

I couldn't find any reference to the Gates foundation on that page. What makes you say they had the Guardian publish it?

There is a big logo immediately beneath the headline. If you click on it, it says the foundation partially funds the website.

I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. However, following the "about this content" link under the logo, the following is stated:

> It is made possible by part-funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The site is editorially independent of any sponsorship.

That’s code for, “if we publish something that the foundation dislikes, they will cut our funding.” There is no such thing as editorial independence when it comes to funding, unless it’s done anonymously or automatically.

There's quite a difference between not being able to piss of the sponsor too much and "the Bill Gates' foundation had The Guardian publish a piece", which was the claim.

The article deviates enough from the usual tone of The Guardian for one to suspect that the latter is indeed the case, and the title change corroborates this suspicion. Finally, "not being able to piss of the sponsor too much" is already fishy journalism.

Tbh that’s not entirely false. There are plenty of benefits to kids working early. It’s preventing true exploitative labor that’s the real problem. I think the guardian is pretty great, what’s the issue with them?

I also like The Guardian. That article goes in the opposite direction of what they usually publish.

Well that’s a quick judgement to want them offline for a single story which btw I think it sounds like we both agreed with.

No, I would like to see the story down, not The Guardian. Also I don't agree with that article. I find it bizarre that a usually left leaning publication would condone with child labour.

Ah I misunderstood your comment as taking the guardian down not just the article.

Wasn't it admitted that a major goal of Bill Gates was to be awarded a Nobel Peace prize? It came up from stories surrounding Epstein and why was Bill Gates in contact with him - for his influence, against the advise of his lawyers. I wouldn't be surprised $250M is part of that desire.

I believe anytime you spend $250 million, the results, whether good or bad, should be clearly visible. In this case Gates could have burned the money and there would have been roughly the same results.

If he had burned the money there would NOT be a huge favorable popular opinion about his "good deeds" (note the quotation marks, because they are only good for people unaware of their consequences).

So I don't think he would get the "same results" by burning the money.

Why wouldn't there be a huge favorable popular opinion?

Can you tell me bad things what the Foundation does?

Organizations like the Gates Foundation often bypass national governments and nationally-established health systems in order to push forward their own governance principles on health and healthcare. This often de-stabilizes local, on-going initiatives and de-legitimizes public healthcare efforts. Not to mention, the Foundation often prioritizes treating "the symptoms" with technical interventions, rather than building a resilient, holistic system to prevent diseases and health issues from arising in the future.

Some sources on the legitimacy and efficacy of their workings (within global health):

Doyle, C., & Patel, P. (2008). Civil society organisations and global health initiatives: problems of legitimacy. Social Science & Medicine, 66(9), 1928-1938.

Pfeiffer, J. (2003). International NGOs and primary health care in Mozambique: the need for a new model of collaboration. Social Science & Medicine, 56(4), 725-738.

Storeng, K. T. (2014). The GAVI Alliance and the 'Gates approach' to health system strengthening. Global Public Health, 9(8), 865-879.

“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” - Ecclesiastes 1:2

Perhaps spending money to influence thought would have been better spent on true charity.

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