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How George Soros co-opts the
media and keeps criticism down
By Matt Palumbo
Tomi Lahren: George Soros is dedicated to destroying our nation
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empire will outlive him
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George Soros is the most
dangerous man in America
— here’s why
How George Soros funds
‘fact checkers’ to silence
dissent
George Soros uses donations to media organizations and journalism think tanks to avoid criticism for his liberal activism.
Olivier Hoslet/Pool Photo via AP, File
January 23, 2023 6:21pm Updated
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George Soros is the most dangerous man in America. The Columnists
investor is intent on remaking the country in his liberal image,
from our foreign policy priorities to undermining our criminal Rich Lowry
justice system. This week, The Post takes a look at the reach
of Soros’ billions . In this second essay, Matt Palumbo, author With debt out of control, Republicans
of “ The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of can't be intermittent fiscal hawks
George Soros ,” examines Soros investments in liberal
propaganda.
Nicole Gelinas
A new report from the Media Research Center has exposed
connections between billionaire liberal financier George Adams has fine ideas for NYC but
risks losing focus on issue #1: crime
Soros and 54 prominent media figures. As documented by its
authors, Joseph Vazquez and Dan Schneider, these include
reporters, anchors, columnists, editors, news executives and
Douglas Murray
journalists.
The highest-profile media figures revealed to have The Mike Pompeo speech on China's
influence on US universities that MIT
connections to Soros, often due to them sitting on boards of killed
organizations he funds, include:
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 CNN’s Christiane Amanpour once sat on the board of the Center for Public Integrity*, a 52,700
nonprofit investigative journalism group previously funded by Soros, that critics charge mainly
targets Republican fundraisers.

NBC’s Lester Holt , the Washington Post’s Sally Buzbee , Associated Press executive editor
Julie Pace , and Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni all sit on the board of the
Committee to Protect Journalists, a Soros-funded organization that purports to defend the
rights of journalists.
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Sall Buzbee, executive editor of the Washington Post, is on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
AP

CBS’s Margaret Brennan and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria serve on the board of the massively
influential Council on Foreign Relations, a Soros-backed think tank specializing in US foreign
policy.

NBC’s chairman Cesar Conde is on the board of the Aspen Institute, a Soros-backed think
tank. In recent years, it launched a left-leaning commission to combat so-called disinformation,
and was implicated in the suppression of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story in the
recently released Twitter files.

NPR’s president and CEO John Lansing is connected by the direct funding Soros gives his
publication.

PolitiFact editor-in-chief Angie Dronbic Holan serves on the board of the Soros-backed
International Fact-Checking Network, which has openly pressed Facebook to censor what it
considers misinformation (i.e., anything that goes against the liberal narrative), and serves as
the “high body” for dozens of fact-checking organizations under its umbrella.

And it shows in their coverage. Not only does Soros fund the media to push his radical-left agenda, his
funding has the added effect of insulating him from criticism.

As Vazquez and Schneider include among their examples: During a PBS segment in 2018, Amanpour
had on Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and used the opportunity to accuse
his boss, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, of being “anti-Semitic” for cracking down on the billionaire’s
influence in his country.

1 of 7
CBS anchor Margaret Brennan is on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Photo by Michele Crowe/CBS via Getty Images

As I noted in my book, “The Man Behind the Curtain,” bogus charges of anti-Semitism against Soros’
critics are the most common line of attack among Soros-funded outlets.

During the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in 2018, the Soros-funded ThinkProgress called reports that Soros
was paying people to protest against then-President Donald Trump an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory,”
and accused Trump himself of “getting in on the anti-Semitic action.”

Meanwhile, Soros was spending $5 million on the effort to thwart Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court
nomination, and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyer Debra Katz was vice chair of the Project on
Government Oversight, which has been directly funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

NPR has received nearly $2 million from Soros in the past to hire up to 100 new reporters. When Spanish
language broadcaster Radio y Televisión Martí ran a 15-minute segment on the influence of Soros,
warning that he has his “eyes on Latin America,” NPR branded it “taxpayer-funded anti-Semitism against
George Soros” (referencing the fact that Radio y Televisión Martí is funded by the US federal
government). It also voiced support for the US Agency for Global Media launching an investigation into it
as a result.

Read all the Post’s coverage on the reach of George Soros’ billions
Soros and prosecutors who won’t prosecute

How Soros co-opts the media

Joe Biden, the president Soros finally controls

Soros ‘fact checks’ away dissent

This “Any criticism of Soros is anti-Semitic” narrative has naturally spread to other left-wing publications,
such as the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and seemingly everywhere
else. So mindless is this type of charge that one publication, Moment Magazine, accused the Jewish
prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, of anti-Semitism for daring to criticize Soros.

Soros went into overdrive in funding his media empire in the Trump era, with other research from the
MRC finding that from 2016 to 2020, Soros dished out at least $131 million to influence at least 253
journalism and activist media groups to promote far-left views on abortion, economics, the police,
environmentalism, LGBT ideology, and anti-Americanism. A common strategy for when those outlets
report on any misdeeds of Soros is to frame the allegations as “conspiracy theories” from people with
sinister motives (similar to how the media will phrase Republicans reacting to Democratic misdeeds or
failures as “Republicans pouncing” — as if they’re the ones in the wrong). Publications that employ
journalists that also serve on Soros-funded boards include the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,
the Baltimore Sun, CNN, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ABC News, the Sacramento Bee and countless
more.
Others will simply downplay any alleged wrongdoing or accept Soros’ counternarrative without question.
One such example came back in 2021 when the left-leaning journalism nonprofit ProPublica (which
receives just under 2% of its funding from Soros) released a report that used 15 years of confidential IRS
records to calculate the effective tax rate that billionaires pay on their fortunes (which was low because
unrealized capital gains aren’t taxed).

Soros donated $131 million to at least 253 journalism and activist media groups from 2016 to 2020.
Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

Among the billionaires named was Soros, who didn’t pay a cent of income tax for three years in a row
from 2016 to 2018. While the other billionaires listed in their report are extensively criticized, Soros only
gets a brief mention, and immediate rebuttal in the form of a quote from a representative that “Between
2016 and 2018 George Soros lost money on his investments, therefore he did not owe federal income
taxes in those years.”

508 What do you think? Post a comment.

A quick fact-check reveals that Soros Fund Management gained 5% in 2016, 8.9% in 2017 and 0.8% in
2018, meaning that ProPublica presented a lie from Soros unchallenged. A more likely culprit for Soros’
lack of tax burden (at least in 2017 and 2018) is his transfer of $18 billion of his own wealth to his Open
Society Fund. That move guaranteed that those funds will be sheltered from the IRS forever in what one
commentator called the “single biggest tax dodge in US history.”

The donation also allows Soros to deduct up to 20% of its market value on his personal taxes ($3.6
billion), which he can carry forward for five years, effectively giving him a double write-off (not paying taxes
on future income while dodging capital gains taxes on donated stock).

Naturally, in responses to any concerns about how funding from Soros could possibly impact their
coverage, ProPublica has addressed them by dismissing the term “Soros-funded” as a “vaguely anti-
epithet meant to connote left-wing bias

* A previous version of this story said Christiane Amanpour currently sits on the board of the Center for
Public Integrity. She longer does, and the Center says it has no active grants from Soros or Soros-related
groups.

Filed under christiane amanpour fareed zakaria george soros journalists

lester holt Media 1/23/23

Read Next As teen violence surges, Hochul fails to address a key cau...
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Harvey Keck
23 January, 2023

One way to defang this attack on our country is to stop having our country be his partner. One
f the biggest scams that we have is the "non-profit" status in our IRS tax code. The Lois

incident shows how this is used to game the system. Let EVERYONE pay taxes on their

Reply 176 Share

James McDonald
2 days ago

The biggest scam in our IRS is the tax code period. Supplanting it with a Fair Tax will go
long way in ending Government power grabs, manipulations and the underground
cheats.

Reply 31 Share
3 replies

Fred G Sanford
2 days ago

How about churches, in particular these evangelical mega churches where the preachers
around in private jets and openly support politicians?

Reply 33 Share
2 replies
Show 5 more replies

Sherwood4ust
2 days ago

Interesting that the article didn’t mention how much money Soros has donated to State
ttorney Generals campaigns nationwide. These are the very same Attorney Generals who
to prosecute criminals in their own states.

Reply 70 Share

Lorraine Palminteri
2 days ago

The fact that he funded violence that resulted in the loss of life, injuries, property damage
chaos is enough to jail him. Soros should pay for all damages.

SOROS: Spends $ Organizing Riots Overrunning Streets

in DRC (Demoratically run Cities).

Reply 6 Share
1 reply

BigCheeseMakerII
2 days ago

That was in other articles about Soros.

Reply 14 Share
 AK2MX2K
2 days ago

Doesn't Soros' ability to influence US policy speak to the larger problem.

How do foreign actors have the ability to donate and lobby US Congressional and Senate
embers in an obvious attempt to gain favorable policies? How do foreign actors have the
to donate to local elections and look ...

See more
Reply 16 Share

Stonewall Jackson
2 days ago
Look where racist Stacy Abrams donations came from. Over 90% of her donations were
out of state.
Reply 8 Share
1 reply

Sunshade
2 days ago
The love of money and power
Reply 4 Share
Show 3 more replies

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