There’s the “influence industry” for you. And there’s the sort of follow-the-money reporting we’d like to see more often. The Kochs are indeed influential, but they are not alone.
Campaign Desk
09:50 AM - February 11, 2011
Kochs’ Influence
Another week in the news for the billionaire brothers
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
What to do if you find a baby bird
Expert advice
Inside Google’s secret lab
We might deplore the practice, but posting pictures of our food online is a way to bring everyone to the table
How the ‘World’s 50 Best’ list changed the way elite restaurants do business
“Every time the restaurant switched up its format, it got plenty of accompanying media coverage that let judges know they needed to return to see what was going on”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Another one to file in the "Things we dont care so much about when we do it
" folder.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 11 Feb 2011 at 11:10 AM
The Kochs' influence isn't new, they've been funding the Heritage Foundation, CATO, and other so many other think tanks and libertarian ventures that they're influence has been characterized as the Kochtopus.
What is nasty is the way the Kochs go after journalists and protest groups for making their activities more public than they'd like.
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/smearing-jane-mayer
And now that the tactics of right wing groups like the chamber of commerce are exposed due to anonymous's hack back-
http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2011/02/coincidence-chamber-spies-and-koch.html
Let's hope they knock that Pinkerton crap off.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 11 Feb 2011 at 01:21 PM
This is interesting.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/billionaires-role-in-hiring-decisions-at-florida-state-university-raises/1168680
"A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise."
Traditionally, university donors have little official input into choosing the person who fills a chair they've funded. The power of university faculty and officials to choose professors without outside interference is considered a hallmark of academic freedom.
Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it's not happy with the faculty's choice or if the hires don't meet "objectives" set by Koch during annual evaluations.
David W. Rasmussen, dean of the College of Social Sciences, defended the deal, initiated by an FSU graduate working for Koch. During the first round of hiring in 2009, Koch rejected nearly 60 percent of the faculty's suggestions but ultimately agreed on two candidates...
The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, to which he has given as much as $80 million a year, has focused on "advancing social progress and well-being" through grants to about 150 universities. But in the past, most colleges, including Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, received just a few thousand dollars.
The big exception has been George Mason University, a public university in Virginia which has received more than $30 million from Koch over the past 20 years. At George Mason, Koch's foundation has underwritten the Mercatus Center, whose faculty study "how institutions affect the freedom to prosper."
When President George W. Bush identified 23 regulations he wanted to eliminate, 14 had been initially suggested by Mercatus scholars. In a New Yorker profile of the Koch brothers in August, Rob Stein, a Democratic strategist, called Mercatus "ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington.
Now, rather than taking over entire academic departments, Koch is funding faculty who promote his agenda at universities where there are a variety of economic views. In addition to FSU, Koch has made similar arrangements at two other state schools, Clemson University in South Carolina and West Virginia University.
Bruce Benson, chairman of FSU's economics department, said that of his staff of 30, six, including himself, would fall into Koch's free-market camp.
"The Kochs find, as I do, that a lot of regulation is actually detrimental and they're convinced markets work relatively well when left alone," he said..."
Time to review that inet interview on the corruption of the economics profession:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZafoyyqJ7I
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 11 May 2011 at 10:42 PM