“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation declares its noble mission is to bring ‘innovations in health and learning to the global community,'” reports The Drudge Report.
Drudge reports, “But the world’s largest philanthropic organization also is among the organizations that collectively loaned nearly $400 million to MediaNews Group, Inc. — for the acquisition of newspapers in California and Minnesota!”
“‘I thought this foundation was all about starving kids, not starving newspapers,’ mocked one Seattle insider,” Drudge reports.
Drudge reports, “In April, MediaNews agreed to buy four newspapers, including the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS and CONTRA COSTA TIMES, from MCCLATCHY CO. for $1 billion. MEDIANEWS also bought California’s MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD and the ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS in Minnesota. It also own the DENVER POST.”
Full article here. If article is moved, find it via: http://www.drudgereport.com/
MacDailyNews Take: All you need to do is read some of those newspapers to understand why they need charity help. So what if a few kids starve to death ($400 million could buy a lot of sandwiches), at least there are still paychecks for hack writers. We can’t wait to read their unbiased reports about all the good done by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Sounds a bit too much like a Citizen Kane fetish? I wonder who “Rosebud” really is? Is it Melinda or the OS?”
Bill will be lying on his deathbed muttering the word “Longhorn” repeatedly under his breath.
“Bill will be lying on his deathbed muttering the word “Longhorn” repeatedly under his breath.”
Or possibly, “Dammit Fester, put the chair down. It’s over.”
Or more likely the final truth, “Soylent Green is Vista.”
mac user 47 If he just wanted to give money to charity, there are only about a million he could have quietly donated to…
he is the head of the wealthiest private charitable foundation. I’m pretty sure that he can’t donate to anything “quietly.” Further, it is not his money — it belongs to the foundation, which is run by a board of directors. Many other people have donated their money to this foundation so that redundancy can be minimized and efficiency improved in caring for world health problems. The foundation has selected some pretty massive problems to focus on. Sure there are others, but not many which are more pressing.
Anyone here who sees Bill Gates as anything other than as one of the most ruthless and manipulative enterpreneurs [sic] on the planet just isn’t looking. If you believe that Bill Gates is just a humble geek looking to help others in the world then you’ve just bought the image.
He is retiring from MS, so he no longer has entrepreneurial interests in that company. I think we all know that his personal legacy as MS chief will not be that great (this might qualify as the understatement of the year). I imagine that he has developed an interest in leaving a better legacy with his charitable work.
Yeah and to ensure his legacy looks good in ink, buy up the media.
Nice. Real nice.
Become the world’s wealthiest man by ruthlessly leveraging the world’s greatest monopoly for decades, condeming millions to use of inferior products, then use the untold Billions to tyr to buyback you reputation as really a giving it back good guy, and in the process buy yourself a lasting handwritten legacy.
Doesn’t Encarta imply that MS invented personal computing? Is there even a mention of Apple Computer?
Not Mac related in any way whatsoever.
On the hero’s tomb is written
Not what he was, but what he should’ve been
And nothing you can do will change the circumstances
Just a mild infuriation with statistics of sin
“Not Mac related in any way whatsoever.”
Yea, but I work for MediaNews so I’m glad it’s here. Also happy to be employed.
Typing this on a MediaNews Mac.
Similarly, AIDS is a treatable and preventable disease.
mike k, it’s obvious you’re not an epidemiologist. AIDS is a syndrome, not a disease. No wonder no headway is being made if people don’t even know what AIDS stands for.
There seems to be a conflict of interest in this newspaper purchase. San Jose Mercury News has always been anti-Apple. More of the same from Gates. Anyone who thinks his foundation is doing any good, name the specifics of one “good thing” it’s done. And why isn’t it helping out in this country?
Let people did in misery. It’s the only way they will learn to magically cure diseases and end droughts through mental telepathy. THEN they will start their own better schools using their massive cash inflow, and the children will be saved!
There is giving and there is giving and there is such a beast as a charitable foundation which gives and gets.
As the riches man in the world surely you can do something about your poor image.
– Hmm, what do you have in mind?
Well, you wouldn’t want to give x% to the gov’mint, would you?
– Heh, who would want to do that!
Precisely! The tax laws allow you to deny the gov’mint its rightful share by giving it to some one else as charity. Now … wait, hear me out. Think of all the kudos you’ll get…the gratitude of untold millions. It’s called “philantrophy.” And being a philantrophist sounds a hell of a lot better than being a “RECTUM” – a Retired CEO of a Troubled Unmanageable Megacorporation.
– Yeah, it’s become a pain in the ass. I want out.
Now here comes the good part. As you know, x& of your money is practically lost to the gov’mint anyway, right? Well, here’s a way you can keep some ownership of it. We stick it in a charitable foundation and we only have to distribute a certain percentage of the annual earnings to charity. It works like this….
“I don’t really understand Drudge’s point, but I really can’t stand consipacy theorists, if that is his angle. Has it occurred to Matt Drudge that a foundation with $17 Billion in assets need to invest that money somewhere? They don’t just leave it in a passbook savings account.
In essence, any of these large foundations (Gates, Ford, Annenberg, etc.) are private equity firms. They will invest in things that provide a financial return to the foundation.”
______________________
Uh, no, you’re wrong. This is a different kind of invesment – and it has nothing to do with direct financial return from investing in a media outlet. It’s an investment in information control. Newspapers are losing losing money hand over fist. There are all sorts of legitimate investments they could undertake if they wanted, and Bill’s friend Warren Buffet could certainly help with that. But the notion that he either puts his money into newspapers or else a “passbook savings account” is absurd. You don’t know anything about finances. Be quiet.
It must be some sort of tax shelter, that is why Warren Buffet is in for 30ish billion…
Its really a shame that MDN is reduced to poking fun at a charitable organization, using dubious claims from a highly questionable source.
This is not Mac news, this is not Windows news. It makes MDN look like petty children.
neomonkey: it’s obvious you’re not an epidemiologist. AIDS is a syndrome, not a disease. No wonder no headway is being made if people don’t even know what AIDS stands for.
you are right — i am not an epidemiologist.
I’m sorry … what was the rest of your point?
Jon,
A charitable organization, by the nature of its tax exemt status, is open to public scrutiny. If the Gates Foundation is using monies that don’t make sense to their charter goals, then it is worth examining.
That’s okay, mike k, not many people do get the mistake of equating HIV to AIDS. Read “Inventing The AIDS Virus” by Dr. Peter Duseberg if you want to find out.
Sparky.
You’re right. A charitable organization is open to public scrutiny, but MDN is hardly the forum.
Jon >
And a charitable organisation – which is receiving said tax privileges – that has been established (partially) in the name of the founder, continuing Chairman and largest shareholder of a company that is a convicted monopolist on two continents and that continues to take every opportunity to push the limits of legal business practice, both by the letter and spirit of that law, must be scrutinised to ensure that it is not simply acting as a cipher for the non-charitable interests and agenda of those who established the charitable entity.
If the Gates Foundation is lending money, it would be interesting to establish whether MediaNews is paying more or less than the market rate: if it’s less, one would ask why, and if it is considerably more, one could argue that the premium must be associated to the perceived level of risk which then calls the wisdom of such a loan into question.
Guys, you’re jumping to all kinds of unsupported conclusions here. The foundation made a LOAN to a company, and probably did so in order to make a profit on the transaction, thus increasing the assets of the foundation. There’s nothing wrong with that.
A charity, like any other organization, needs to find a way to sustain its operations. Some of them do it by soliciting donations, and this one does it apparently by participating in financial markets. It’s about the same as putting its idle cash into any other interest-bearing securities. If you think the foundation is just supposed to spend until it evaporates, you’re very naiive.
-jcr
Forget about the Contra Costa Times investment. Anyone ever heard of MSNBC.com?
Not that this is Mac related news in the least MDN, but since everyone else seems to be idiotically railing about how this is some influence-grab buy M$, I fugured I’d put my 2 cents in.
If you think about what the Gates Foundation usually does, and Bill & Melinda’s politics generally, it’s pretty obvious why they are doing this.
A strong, independent press goes hand in hand with a strong democracy. The current corptocracy-owned media outlets have made a mockery of that idea – in fact these papers were in danger of being sold off for parts, or otherwise absorbed into yet another conglomerate, unless an ‘angel’ was brought in. Enter Gates and MediaNewsGroup. Now, MNG is no ‘mom & pop’ organization, but they aren’t Disney/ABC, Viacom/CBS, or NBC/Universal either. From their mission statement:
“Our corporate mission is to be the leading provider of local news, information and services in our strategically located markets … We will continually strive to improve our profitability, while being a strong community partner and strengthening our work environment for our employees.”
http://www.medianewsgroup.com/AboutUs/
I think Gates saw a grand old paper like the San Jose Mercury News in danger and wanted to do something positive about it. By investing in keeping their (and all those other papers’) doors open, he helps keep the media industry in the US at least a little more diverse than it otherwise would have been, while at the same time (assuming the best) providing an investment income stream to the Foundation with which it can continue to do its usual good work.
There’s nothing insidious about it. In fact, it shows Gates is a much better phoilanthropist than he ever was a software engineer. Credit where it is due, people.
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Made quite a few spelling errors above, but “Now, MNG is no ‘mom & pop’ organization, but they aren’t Disney/ABC, Viacom/CBS, or NBC/Universal either.”
should be amended to “Now, MNG is no ‘mom & pop’ organization, but they aren’t Disney/ABC, Viacom/CBS, Rupert Murdock/FOX, or NBC/Universal either.”
The one I originally forgot is the worst offender of all.