Read more:
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/19/farenthold-congress-will-likely-investigate-doj-media-matters-collusion-target-groups-tax-exempt-status/#ixzz27F8QnpATWHO FUNDS MEDIA MATTERS ?
Relying on tax returns and websites of wealthy U.S. foundations, a Daily
Caller investigation has revealed the sources of more than $28.8 million in
funding collected by the liberal
Media
Matters for America since 2003, the year before its formal incorporation.
That sum represents 54 percent of every dollar the organization has raised in
its history, making Media Matters a principally foundation-driven — not
citizen-supported — activist group.
The list of Media Matters’ foundation funders, 120 in all, reads like a Who’s
Who of the American progressive movement, including the far-left
Tides
Foundation ($4,384,702),
George Soros’ Open Society Institutes ($1,075,000),
the
Ford Foundation ($966,466),
the Sandler Foundation ($400,000) — endowed by
subprime mortgage lenders Herb and Marion Sandler, who once bankrolled the
embattled ACORN organization —
and the Schumann Fund for Media and Democracy
($600,000), managed by longtime PBS host Bill Moyers and his son.
They also include the anti-George W. Bush organization
MoveOn.org ($50,000),
the Barbra Streisand Foundation ($85,000),
the kids’ shoes-powered Stride Rite
Charitable Foundation ($25,000),
the Lear Family Foundation ($55,000) — endowed
by the TV producer and People for the American Way founder Norman Lear —
and the
Joyce Foundation ($400,000), whose board of directors included Barack Obama from
1994 to 2002.
(RELATED:
See the list of Media Matters’ foundation donors)
The Joyce Foundation grant, made in 2010, was earmarked for ”a gun and public
safety issue initiative.” That program, judging from the ensuing Media Matters
coverage, included scathing reports on the shooting-sports lobby and on the
firearms industry’s annual convention. “To lure repeat buyers,” that story
warned, “increased lethality has become the nicotine of the firearms
industry.”
2010 was also, TheDC
reported
Monday, the year when Media Matters founder David Brock’s personal assistant
was carrying a holstered and concealed Glock handgun when he accompanied Brock
to events.
The Daily Caller is publishing spreadsheets describing all the
grants
to Media Matters it has identified,
how
much each donor contributed overall, and for what purpose, if any, their
donations were earmarked. Most grants were described in foundations’ tax returns
as “general support” contributions.
TheDC
reported
Thursday that the ARCA Foundation, a Democratic-aligned philanthropy, made a
$50,000 grant to Media Matters in 2006 for the specific purpose of “fact
checking” religious broadcasters. ARCA also gave Media Matters $100,000 in
startup funding two years earlier. But in the larger context of the $53.4
million the organization has raised since 2003, $150,000 is a drop in the
proverbial bucket.
(RELATED:
See the spreadsheet of foundation grants to Media Matters)
Non-profit organizations like Media Matters are permitted to keep their
sources of support secret, but grantmaking foundations are required to disclose
how much they give away each year, and to whom. According to the Foundation
Center, U.S. foundations
distributed more than $45.7 billion in 2009.
Their publicly available tax returns make it possible to reconstruct non-profit
grant recipients’ once-secret incomes to a great degree.