As a brand new feature of this blog, I'm beginning to look into the financial sources, and the possible biases, of certain notable organizations. I'll call this periodic inclusion "Follow the Money".
So who or what is behind PolitiFact, at least financially speaking? The company is owned and operated by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which is "a non-profit school for journalists" based in St. Petersburg, Florida (1, 2).
Looking through available financial records, it appears that the Institute has a rather interesting list of major donors. These partners include:
- "Meta"/Facebook.
- TikTok (a social networking platform that is owned by Chinese firm "ByteDance Ltd.").
- Microsoft.
- AmeriHealth Caritas (a health insurance and health care company).
- Google/Alphabet, Inc. (through various investments by Google News).
Examining this, the information concerning TikTok/ByteDance is of particular interest.
That said, given the obvious implication that ByteDance is at least funded by the Communist Party of China, one wonders what influence the Party has over the operations of the Institute (as well as PolitiFact itself).
- In addition to their ownership of PolitiFact, the Institute also operates:
- The Tampa Bay Times/Times Publishing Company.
- The "International Fact-Checking Network".
- Florida magazines "Bay" and "Florida Trend".
- Florida Spanish-language newspaper "Centro" (2).
- PolitiFact "won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2009" (4).
- In 2006, Tampa Bay Times/Times Publishing Company CEO Paul Tash was made a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board (5). This stands out as a potential conflict of interest.
- Tash's "party affiliation is with the Democratic Party".
- "The Poynter Institute received seven thousand thirty-seven thousand four hundred dollars from the (US government's) Paycheck Protection Program during the COVID-19 pandemic" (2). Is it possible that this money could've been a reward for publishing opinions favorable to the government?
The Bottom Line:
The journalism school that runs PolitiFact gets major funding from organizations known to be openly hostile to free speech. One of these may itself be bankrolled (or otherwise controlled) by the Communist Party of China.
Given the implication of major Chinese interest, it is reasonable to ask about the site's true purpose. Thus, a serious question arises; is PolitiFact a legitimate source of news and "fact-checking", or is it merely a propaganda device and mouthpiece?
If it is the latter, perhaps this issue should be investigated on a more official level, and by someone possessing more power than myself.
Sources:
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