Originally published September 20, 2023 10:27 am PDT
Twenty-two Maine newspapers were purchased by the Democrat mega-donors.
QUICK FACTS:
- George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss funded a non-profit that acquired nearly two dozen local Maine newspapers.
- Wyss supports left-wing States Newsroom, an organization of local news outlets that is expanding in the State of Maine.
- While the non-profit National Trust for Local News admitted it received funding from Open Society Foundations, it did not say that the Soros organization donated specifically toward the newspaper acquisition.
- However, according to a report from media outlet Semafor, an individual with “direct knowledge of the project said that both Open Society and Wyss gave millions to the National Trust for the purchase of the Maine newspapers.”
- National Trust now has five daily newspapers and 17 weekly newspapers.
- The price of the 22 newspaper outlets remains unknown.
SOROS’ HISTORY OF DONATING TO MEDIA OUTLETS:
- A report from the Media Research Center found that George Soros donated over $52 million to media outlets since 2003.
- According to the report, Soros’ funding created a left-wing “echo chamber,” explained as a system in which “a message pushes the larger public or the mainstream media to acknowledge, respond, and give airtime to progressive ideas because it is repeated many times.”
- Some purport that Soros’ funding presents a journalistic ethics violation, as several mainstream journalists are on the boards of operations that acquire the funds.
- “Reporters and editors serving on boards of groups funded by Soros openly violate both aspects of this guideline,” MRC explained, referring to the phrase in the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethical code stating that journalists are to avoid “all conflicts real or perceived.”
BACKGROUND:
- American Faith reported that Soros donated thousands of dollars to left-wing personalities on social media platform TikTok.
- Accelerate Action, the organization receiving Soros donations, provided funds to Gen Z for Change, a group calling for numerous far-left reforms.
- “We are unequivocally supportive of Medicare for all, the Green New Deal, Palestinian liberation, [and] a plethora of progressive policies that a vast majority of Gen Z supports,” Gen Z for Change founder Aidan Kohn-Murphy said on TikTok.
