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Comment by sasaf5 | Hacker News Reader

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...

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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.

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.

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