(Daily360.com) – A group called the MacArthur Foundation is trying to replicate the national 2020 election influence of Mark Zuckerberg’s “Zuckerbucks” on the local level throughout the United States. Just as tech billionaire and Facebook creator Zuckerberg executed a plan to drive voter turnout in blue areas through his access of voter data, the MacArthur group wants to push blue causes on local outlets. Local news is generally considered more reliable than national news and implanting messaging within it would likely lead to a greater sway with local voters.
The MacArthur Foundation’s aim is to implant left-leaning agenda items into regional news media. Their plan is to utilize their non-profit status to issue grants to outlets they deem as worthy. The first sets of grants totaled around $50 million dollars and was announced on December 18th. Within the MacArthur announcement was their pledge to strengthen local newsrooms, improve infrastructure for local news production, close longstanding “inequities” in journalism coverage, and practice and advance polices that will expand access to local news.
Among the recipients of these grants were Documented, a media company located in New York City that focuses on issues affecting the “immigrant communities” of NYC, and Enlace Latino NC, whose objective is to report and serve the Spanish-speaking communities of North Carolina. Free Press, an online media group that focuses on racial statistics and “underserved communities” received $1 million. Mississippi Free Press, which focuses on LGBTQ, race and structural issues, received $350,000. URL Media’s goal is creating a network of “black and brown” publishers and for that they have received $500,000.
All the groups bestowed money seem to have clear leftist political positions. Critics worry that local news and media will now start to look like local schools, local government and many other institutions that push and promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agendas.
For decades non-profits have been used by leftist money influencers to implant agendas and messaging where it would likely not have arisen naturally. People who object to this kind of use of non-profit organizations believe they should exist with a mandatory time limit on their existence and be forced to wind down once endowments are spent. They further say the creators of many of the foundations would not like the direction they take after most have passed on and the years go by.
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