Early last week, a scandal hit the political-journalism complex which was on par with the way the “payola” scandal rocked the popular music world in the 1950s; see NEW: Massive Press Scandal As USAID Funding for ‘Politico’ Revealed, and It Gets Worse From There.
Analysis of open-source federal documents has shown many news organizations received obscene amounts of money from the federal government in the guise of “subscriptions.”
President Trump reacted quickly to the news that the federal government was spending tens of millions of dollars each year to support media outlets. Obviously, this kind of support is wrong in a free society, and it is especially wrong when the outlets are hostile to Conservatism and are contributing to the communist/globalist effort.
The immediate defense from the various outlets was, “Move along, nothing to see here.”
This is how Politico “hand-waved“ the allegations:
‘POLITICO has been the subject of debate on X this week. Some of it has been misinformed, and some of it has been flat-out false. Let’s set the record straight,’ the outlet wrote as part of a memo published on its website. ‘POLITICO is a privately owned company. We have never received any government funding—no subsidies, no grants, no handouts. Not one dime, ever, in 18 years.’
The note comes in response to social media posts and public statements from Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and others who have expressed outrage that a large number of government agencies and federal employees subscribe to Politico’s expensive ‘Pro’ news content.
The expenditures were revealed this week as part of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency work to reform major federal departments including USAID.
It is common for federal agencies to allow employees to expense subscriptions to newspapers, wire services, and other media outlets as a function of their jobs, while subscriptions to niche content in a specific policy area can cost thousands of dollars a year.
Most Politico Pro subscribers are in the private sector, the company said Thursday, and come from across the ideological spectrum, with a renewal rate of around 90 percent every year ‘because they rely on our reporting, data, and insights.’
‘Government agencies that subscribe do so through standard public procurement processes—just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient. This is not funding. It is a transaction—just as the government buys research, equipment, software, and industry reports. Some online voices are deliberately spreading falsehoods,’ the outlet said. ‘Let’s be clear: POLITICO has no financial dependence on the government and no hidden agenda. We cover politics and policy—that’s our job.’
Seriously, our government does not depend upon the insights and analysis of the “midwits at Politico.”
NOTE:
– Brad Slager, looked at this defense and found it wanting; see Let’s Untangle the Inappropriate Financial Deals Between the Federal Gov’t., Politico, and Other Outlets – RedState, and
– [S]tatements from former reporters indicating they were told to spike or suppress stories harmful to Joe Biden are not uncommon; see Former Politico Reporters Drop Bombshell Alleging Suppression of Hunter Biden Stories – RedState.
Of course, the media outlets involved can produce invoices showing they provided “premium” subscriptions to the various agencies.
But just like auditing a money laundering operation, you are not obligated to take what they say at face value. In fact, the government contracting documents indicate there is something else going on.
Politico Subscriptions. (Source)
New York Times Subscriptions. (Source)
Associated Press Subscriptions. (Source)
No matter the intent, it is an unassailable fact that in these three instances involving Politico, the New York Times, and the AP, the massive increase in their subscription business with the U.S. government coincides with Joe Biden’s assumption of his position and is really obvious by February 2021, Biden’s first full month in position.
There is no such volume of subscriptions in either the Obama or Trump administrations.
The government does not need to purchase this number of subscriptions to premium media services.
While the government may have bought them because the ‘venture Marxists’ at the upper reaches of government like to imagine themselves as ‘captains of industry’ and brilliant executives, and the subscriptions served as an outward symbol of their importance, the media outlets could not but have pulled their punches when weighing negative stories about Joe Biden, his dementia, his criminal family, etc., against potentially millions of dollars in lost revenue.
The excuse that the government always buys these services is patent nonsense and insulting.
Given their history, we know Politico, for instance, can tell much more skillful lies than the one they offered us.
President Trump will certainly order an investigation into this unseemly financial connection between The Obiden Regime and the propaganda media that covered it and provide We the American People a full accounting of what they find.
