Ever wonder why you rarely read a critique of Bill Gates, who is ostensibly a global health expert – but has no medical background whatsoever? Wonder no more. Just follow the money. A recent Columbia School of Journalism exposé reveals that in order to incentivize favorable media stories about him and his foundation – inoculating him against bad press – Bill Gates has steered as much as $250 million to media entities including The New York Times, NPR, NBC, the BBC, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Univision, and The Guardian, to name but a few.
For perspective, it’s helpful to remember that $250 million is the amount Jeff Bezos paid for The Washington Post.
Don’t Bite The Hand That Feeds
That such generous gifts to media outlets come with an explicit caveat which states they must never report anything untoward about their benefactor misses the point. It’s not that the Gates Foundation writes a one-sheet of bullet point dos and don’ts for the Fourth Estate it enriches – it’s that it doesn’t have to. His explicit messaging on COVID-19, the WHO, and the desperate need for a miracle vaccine he insists everyone on earth should get comes with an implicit message: media outlets that rely on Gates’ financial largesse shouldn’t do anything to upset the computer guy.
Anyone who has made the workplace calculus that it is professionally disadvantageous to tell the boss she has bad breath and a low IQ knows how that game is played.
The Cost Of Going From Villain To Hero
It wasn’t always the case that Gates was kid-gloved by the media. In 1998, the Department of Justice brought antitrust charges against Microsoft, which was found guilty of unfair competitive practices in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Gates was seen as a ruthless businessman willing to risk flouting federal law to gain complete hegemony over the software market – and the media, by and large, reflected this perception of him.
Gates dodged the comeuppance for his vaulting ambition, however, as the fateful decision to order the breakup of the Microsoft monopoly was overturned on appeal. To rehabilitate his image with the public in the wake of the bruising anti-trust battle, he established The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a charitable organization with a current endowment of over 45 billion dollars, which changed perceptions of him virtually overnight. With his wife Melinda by his side, Gates became the billionaire philanthropist willing to fund charitable initiatives domestic and international – the tech oligarch with a heart of gold.
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https://www.libertynation.com/how-bill-gates-buys-his-favorable-media-messaging/
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