How one of America’s premier data monarchs is funding a global information war and shaping the media landscape
Through
his purchase of influence over the daily flow of information to
American media consumers, a dizzying array of connections to the
national security state, and a media empire that shields him from
critical scrutiny, Pierre Omidyar has become one of the world’s
most politically sophisticated data monarchs.
by
Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal
Part
5 - Another Integrity Initiative?
Omidyar’s
Democracy Fund has also helped to finance the “News
Integrity Initiative,” a name that evokes the U.K.’s notorious
Integrity Initiative. The latter group claimed to be an
independent charity battling foreign disinformation until it was
exposed by hackers as a propaganda mill run by military officers and
covertly funded by the British Foreign Office to cultivate public
opinion in support of heightened conflict with Russia. Leaked
communications revealed how the Integrity Initiative mobilized
clusters of journalists, self-styled disinformation experts,
academics and political figures throughout the West to advocate for a
long-term war footing against the Russian menace.
For its
part, the News Integrity Initiative is a murky $14 million
operation intended to “combat media manipulation” through
a network of “journalists, technologists, academic institutions,
non-profits, and other organizations.” The set-up is eerily
evocative of the influence clusters developed by the British
Integrity Initiative. Few specifics are provided, however, on
what the group actually does.
A hint
about the agenda of the News Integrity Initiative lies in a
grant of $1 million it made to an outlet called Internews in
2017. The bulk of Internews’ money — some 80 percent of it
— comes from the U.S. government. It has also received backing from
liberal financier George Soros and USAID, which provided the group
with seed money for a Russian-language television network, helped
drive the pro-NATO color revolution in the Republic of Georgia, and
published footage of Russian casualties in Chechnya to erode Russian
public support for the war.
In
countries that are considered official and semi-official enemies of
the United States, Internews has organized de facto boot camps
for opposition journalists. “In the Middle East,” says
Internews founder David Hoffman, “training sessions often
begin with discussion of whether Internews is really U.S. propaganda
or the CIA.” However Hoffman answers the question, it is
abundantly clear that his outlet has advanced Washington’s
priorities abroad behind the guise of independent journalism.
In
November 2017, the News Integrity Initiative hosted a workshop
alongside Internews and the Omidyar-backed First Draft News
in Kiev, Ukraine, according to the initiative’s managing director,
Molly de Aguiar. Kiev is today a nexus for intelligence-connected
media crusaders and a launch pad for projects ostensibly aimed at
countering Russia’s “information warfare.” But, what
exactly the News Integrity Initiative was doing there was left
unsaid.
While
Omidyar ploughs his fortune into organizations that claim to be
countering “disinformation,” especially of the Russian
variety, he has established a culture factory to publicize the
supposed feats of the journalists often hyped up by the cartel of
media transparency groups and fact-checking sites he funds.
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