Who Funds the Progressive Media?

Who Funds the Progressive Media?
by Michael Barker
Global Research, July 7, 2008
http://www.globalre search.ca/ index.php? context=va& aid=9517

Critiques of liberal philanthropy are nothing new: indeed such
criticisms have regularly surfaced ever since liberal foundations
were created in the early twentieth century. In the past few years,
however, the number of critical scholars and activists writing about
practices of liberal foundations has grown rapidly, and there is now
a blossoming literature showing the funding strategies of these
highly influential philanthropists are antidemocratic and
manipulative. The antidemocratic nature of liberal foundations is
epitomized by the long history of collaboration (that formerly
existed) between the largest major liberal foundations (like the
Ford Foundation) and the US Central Intelligence Agency. Moreover,
recent research has demonstrated the key leadership role that
liberal foundations played in developing the means by which powerful
elites could manufacture public (and elite) consent.

By focusing on a variety of progressive media-related groups in
North America (including most notably the Benton Foundation and the
newly launched The Real News Network), this article will discuss the
limits of current funding strategies, and reflect upon alternative,
arguably more sustainable (and democratic) methods by which civil
society media groups may be created and sustained. It will be argued
that the integral hegemonic function of liberal philanthropy has
already deradicalised all manner of progressive social movements,
and that civil society media groups need to cut their institutional
ties with such financing sources. Admittedly solutions cannot be
implemented immediately, but considering the increasing ascendancy
of neoliberal media regimes worldwide it is vital that progressive
concerned citizens call attention to this significant issue.

Liberal philanthropy plays a critical role in promoting and
sustaining progressive media outlets within civil society, which are
also referred to as `alternative' or `autonomous' media.
Historically, the `big three' US-based liberal foundations – the
Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller
Foundation – have nurtured progressive causes on both the national
and international scale, dealing with issues ranging from health
care and civil rights to environmentalism. [1] In recent years
increasing attention has been paid to the influence of conservative
philanthropy, [2] however, the same has not been true for liberal
philanthropy: two notable exceptions to this trend are Professor
Joan Roelofs seminal book, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask
of Pluralism, and INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence's recent
addition, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex. This omission is problematic on a number of
levels. Despite being ostensibly progressive, the major liberal
foundations have at one time or another vigorously promoted all
manner of not so progressive issues like eugenics, elite planning,
and free trade; while they also worked hand-in-hand with the US
Government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout the 1950s
and 1960s. In this context, the big three liberal foundations have
also funded the research of many of the `founding fathers' of mass
communications research, arguably helping them to develop the
capabilities for `manufacturing consent' for elite interests. [3]

Although the importance of money to progressive social movements and
their associated media outlets is obvious to most people,
surprisingly few academics have addressed this subject. It is widely
acknowledged that conservative funding has, over the past few
decades, driven the ideological orientation of mainstream media
outlets rightwards. Research also suggests that liberal funders have
had a detrimental and antidemocratic influence on processes of
social change in general. [4] Such research also questions the role
that `charitable' donations arguably play in sustaining capitalist
hegemony. However, what is the effect specifically on the
development of progressive media? To date only Bob Feldman (2007)
has provided a critical examination of the nexus between liberal
philanthropy and alternative media operations. [5] The lack of
critical enquiry into the influence of liberal philanthropy on the
media of progressive social movements is problematic, as media are
integral to the function of social movements. This article will try
to address this blind spot.

Compared to today, in the late 1960s and 1970s critical awareness
among media activists was relatively high, thanks in part to a
series of articles in the influential Ramparts magazine which asked:
[6]

"Can anyone honestly believe that the foundations, which are based
on the great American fortunes and administered by the present-day
captains of American industry and finance, will systematically
underwrite research which tends to undermine the pillars of the
status quo, in particular the illusion that the corporate rich who
benefit most from the system do not run it – at whatever cost to
society – precisely to ensure their continued blessings?"

More recently, building upon this commonsensical interpretation of
the role of liberal philanthropy within capitalist societies, Andrea
Smith points out that: "From their inception, [liberal] foundations
focused on research and dissemination of information designed
ostensibly to ameliorate social issues-in a manner, how­ever, that
did not challenge capitalism". [7] Using this interpretation of the
role of liberal philanthropy as a starting point and drawing upon
Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony this article will expand upon
Feldman's ground-breaking study. It will document how liberal
foundations have (and continue to) actively shape the evolution of
progressive media groups in North America.

Initially, this article will introduce the work of the Benton
Foundation, a liberal foundation that has played a pioneering and
catalysing role in supporting progressive media ventures. It will
then provide a detailed analysis of a globally significant media
project, The Real News Network, which has been supported by liberal
philanthropy. Drawing upon power structure research it will
critically examine some of the key people and funders. [8] Finally,
the article will discuss the limits of current funding strategies,
and suggest an alternative, arguably more sustainable (and
democratic) method by which civil society media groups may be
created and sustained in the future.

Putting Progressive Communications on the Philanthropic Agenda

Upon the initiative of the late William Benton (1900-1973), the
William Benton Foundation was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) private
foundation in 1948, although in 1981 it was renamed the Benton
Foundation. This foundation is now recognised as one of the leading
sponsors of non-profit progressive media projects in the United
States, alongside the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and
the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Its founder, William Benton is
today credited as having "pushed the envelope… within the foundation
world, urging them to take communications seriously and to use it to
build democracy". [9] However, like most of the big liberal
foundations in the US, the Benton Foundation has elitist roots:
William Benton had strong links to the Rockefellers' and other
assorted corporate and political elites. Given this history, we
must ask: "What type of democracy was William Benton trying to
build?" This question will be addressed in the following.

The Benton Foundation is currently chaired by William Benton's son,
Charles Benton, who like his father maintains close ties to a number
of less than progressive individuals, not least through his position
on the Board of Trustees of The American Assembly. [10] Furthermore,
he is a member of the international founding committee of The Real
News (discussed later), and a trustee of the Education Development
Center. The latter is a non-profit that describes its work as
being "dedicated to enhancing learning, promoting health, and
fostering a deeper understanding of the world." It was created in
1958, and from the beginning the Ford Foundation has been involved
with its work. From 1958-68 the Ford Foundation helped the Center
create a "complete high school physics curriculum" for US schools.
[11] Another notable early supporter of the Education Development
Center's activities was the US Agency for International Development
(AID), which between 1961 and 1976 funded their African Mathematics
Programs. [12] Today the Center has a staff of over 500 people and a
budget in excess of $90 million. Its funding comes from USAID and
liberal philanthropic organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the
Gates Foundation, and George Soros' Open Society Institute. [13]

Sitting with Charles Benton on the Board of Trustees of the
Education Development Center is Larry Irving, the former Assistant
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Irving is "widely
credited with coining the term `the digital divide'" and with
being "a point person" in ensuring the successful passage of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. Jim Kohlenberger, the Benton
Foundation's current senior fellow also "worked to help pass the
Telecommunications Act of 1996". [14] This Act was strongly opposed
by all progressive media groups.

Nonewithstanding these links to people who worked against
progressive media groups in the passage of the 1996
Telecommunications Act, the Benton Foundation has, and continues to
be, an important supporter of progressive media initiatives within
the United States. In a recent interview, Charles Benton explained
that the Benton Foundation began funding of communication projects
in the early 1980s, a time they were not on the agenda of other
foundations. In 1981, the Benton Foundation "decided to work in
support of philanthropy, and particularly the Council on
Foundations, to try to beat the drum and raise the cry about the
importance of communications to both foundations and their
grantees". Since these early days the Benton Foundation's annual
budget for media reform has increased considerably and they now give
away around $1 million a year to help "educat[e] the media reform
community – policymakers, funders, and activists—about the crucial
debates that help shape our media future". [15] The following
section of this article will discuss the backgrounds of some key
Foundation staff and directors.

The Benton Foundation: People and Projects

The president of the Benton Foundation from October 2001 to August
2004, Andrea L. Taylor, is a co-founder of Davis Creek Capital, LLC,
a private equity fund created to invest in Internet and new media
businesses led by women and people of color. Taylor was also
involved in setting up the Media Fund at the Ford Foundation in the
late 1980s, where she worked for nearly a decade to distribute some
$50 million to independent media projects. Taylor presently serves
as a trustee of the Ms. Foundation for Women, is a former director
of the Cleveland Foundation, and the Council on Foundations: the
latter group is an umbrella association of more than 2,100 grant
making foundations and corporations that describes itself as "the
voice of philanthropy" .

After her work at the Benton Foundation, Taylor became vice
president of the aforementioned Education Development Center, where
she helped create, and was the founding president of, their Center
for Media and Community. The Benton Foundation supported the launch
of this center with a three year $668,000 grant, which has been
described as the "largest single commitment in the foundation's
history". Other funders of the Center for Media and Community at the
Education Development Center include the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In June 2006, Taylor became Director for
U.S. Community Affairs at Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft chief
executive officer (CEO) Bill Gates is also the founder of the
largest liberal foundation in the world, the Gates Foundation, a
foundation that distributed some $2 billion of grants in 2007 alone.
[16] Since 2002, the Gates Foundation has also worked closely with
the Benton Foundation, for example on their WebJunction project – a
project which aims to facilitate public access to computing
facilities in public libraries within the United States.

The current president of the Benton Foundation (since 2006) is
Gloria Tristani, the former Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
member. Trisani presently also serves on the FCC's Consumer Advisory
Committee alongside Charles Benton, is a member of The Real News
international founding committee, and sits on the Board of Directors
of Children Now. Other Children Now directors with a media
background include Geoffrey Cowan (former head of Voice of America,
currently a director of the Public Diplomacy Council), Donald
Kennedy (editor-in-chief of Science magazine, a trustee of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and of the David and
Lucile Packard Foundation), and Lenny Mendonca (a director of the
New America Foundation).

The Benton Foundation's administrative manager, Cecilia Garcia first
joined the Foundation in 1997. She has also helped produce the CD-
ROM version of "Chicano: History of the Mexican American Civil
Rights Movement," a major PBS documentary that was produced by the
National Latino Communication Center with the help of a $0.7 million
grant from the Ford Foundation. [17] Recently Garcia took some time
out from her duties at the Benton Foundation to serve as the
executive director of Connect for Kids – a childrens' advocacy group
that is managed by the Ford Foundation-funded non-profit, Forum for
Youth Investment. Two of the five directors of Connect for Kids'
have links to the Benton Foundation: Joseph Getch, former Chief
Financial Officer for the Benton Foundation and member of the
Council on Foundations' research committee, and Charles Benton's
wife, Marjorie Craig Benton, board chair of the Council on
Foundations from 1994 to 1996. Marjorie Craig Benton also serves as
a director of the Microsoft-linked non-profit group, Room to Read.

Like their staff, Benton Foundation board members are well linked to
political elites and the broader world of liberal philanthropy.
Alongside Charles Benton, the other eight directors are: Adrianne
Benton Furniss, former president and CEO of the Chicago-based
publisher/distribut or Home Vision Entertainment (acquired by Image
Entertainment in 2005); Michael Smith (Benton Foundation Treasurer),
former Australian Chairman of public relations firm Weber Shandwick,
and CEO of his own firm, Inside PR; Elizabeth Daley, Founding
Executive Director of the University of Southern California
Annenberg Center for Communication from 1994 to 2005; Terry Goddard,
former Mayor of Phoenix, and trustee of the National Trust for
Historic Preservation from 1992 to 2001; [18] Lee Lynch, former CEO
of the Carmichael-Lynch Advertising Agency, and spouse of Terry
Saario (a former director of the Benton Foundation and former
program officer at the Ford Foundation); Henry Rivera, former FCC
commissioner, and a partner of the law firm Wiley Rein and Fielding
(controversial for defending the use of fake news); Leonard J.
Schrager, former president of the Chicago Bar Foundation and the
Chicago Bar Association; and Woodward Wickham, former vice president
of the MacArthur Foundation, and a director of OneWorld United
States.

Wickham's links to the latter group are worth reviewing as OneWorld
United States was created in 2000, as a joint project between the
Benton Foundation and OneWorld International. OneWorld International
is a Ford Foundation supported group that describes itself as
the "world's favourite and fastest-growing civil society network
online, supporting people's media to help build a more just global
society". OneWorld also has links to the Benton Foundation: Larry
Kirkman, currently a director of OneWorld United States, and chair
of OneWorld International was president of the Benton Foundation
from 1989 to 2001.

Charles Benton's media connections are also of relevance to the
topic of this article: In addition to presiding over the day to day
activities of the Benton Foundation, Charles Benton is also chairman
of Public Media, Inc. (a film and video publisher and distributor)
and served as a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on
Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters
(known as `the Gore Commission') . Charles Benton is also a member of
the international founding committee of the recently launched
alternative media network The Real News. The final section of this
article will examine the philanthropic background of The Real News
in some detail.

The Real News Network

Founded in 2007, The Real News describes itself as a "non-profit
news and documentary network focused on providing independent and
uncompromising journalism". The Real News website proudly claims
that they are "member supported and do not accept advertising,
government or corporate funding" (emphasis in the original). [19]
The site adds, "the Real News will be financed by the economic power
of thousands of viewers like you around the world. Just 250,000
people paying $10 a month will make it happen", and claims there
is "NO government funding; NO corporate funding; NO advertising; NO
STRINGS".

The Real News' mission statement suggests that Real News promotes
independent and investigative journalism and is a grassroots effort.
It fails to mention, however, that the project was launched with
millions of dollars provided by leading US American liberal
foundations. There may well have been no strings attached to the
seed money, but there is little doubt that the foundations chose to
support their project – as opposed to any alternative ones – because
the Real News formula suited the foundations' own philanthropic
interests. How much influence the liberal foundations had in
determining the makeup of The Real News advisory boards and founding
committees will remain unknown until the issue becomes the focus of
an in-depth investigative report. An investigation that is unlikely
to be forthcoming from The Real News itself.

That said, this article does not aim to cast doubt on the
progressive nature of the journalistic output of The Real News. The
quality of the content is indisputably high and offers a real
alternative to mainstream media. This article does try to draw
attention, however, to the fact that The Real News has relied
heavily on liberal philanthropists. It also tries to raise the
question as to what this reliance means for the future of genuine
grassroots initiatives attempting to promote comparable progressive
media projects. In order to open the discussion the following
sections of this article will briefly chart the launch of The Real
News network, and the backgrounds of the people who are associated
with the project.

The Real News can be considered the flagship project of a non-profit
group that is known as Independent World Television (IWT). From
Toronto (Canada), and formed in 2003, IWT was co-founded by Paul Jay
and Sharmini Peries. Paul Jay, who is presently the CEO and chair of
The Real News is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who was
formerly the creator and executive producer of Canadian Broadcasting
Centre Newsworld's debate program counterSpin. On the other hand,
Sharmini Peries, who until recently served as the director of policy
and development for IWT, is an executive director of the
International Freedom of Expression eXchange and the Canadian
Journalists for Free Expression. These two groups are have close
connections to the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for
Democracy. [20] The National Endowment for Democracy plays a big
role in promoting United States' foreign interests – which most
notably saw them support the 2002 coup that temporarily removed
President Hugo Chavez from power. [21] Ironically, Peries presently
serves as a foreign policy advisor to President Chavez.

In 2005, Independent World Television received a $100,000 grant from
the Ford Foundation to conduct a "feasibility and planning study on
an innovative idea to create a news and current affairs TV network
funded primarily by viewers". Two other liberal foundations, the
MacArthur Foundation and the Haas Foundation also contributed to
this planning study. IWT set out to create what would become The
Real News using the services of EchoDitto – a consulting group that
has done much work on projects connected to the United States'
Democratic Party. A website was launched on June 15, 2005
(www.IWTnews. com) to build an online community of supporters and
donors. The goal of this first phase of IWT's project was to raise a
$7 million start-up budget from individual donors and foundations.
By January 2007 IWT had "raised $5 million from several foundations,
charitable trusts, individuals and unions, including the Canadian
Auto Workers Union, the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur
Foundation". [22] Having achieved this level of philanthropic
support, IWT was then able to create The Real News website, at first
with a limited news service to help get the full journalism project
off the ground.

In an interview in early 2007, IWT co-founder Paul Jay said that
during their first year of operations The Real News only required a
further $4 million in funding from the public, but thereafter, with
a full service provided, estimates their annual budget will require
around $30 million a year. Obtaining such high levels of funding
from the public within such a short space of time will undoubtedly
be difficult. Camilo Wilson, one of IWT's Internet strategy
consultants suggested that this goal is too optimistic, noting that
IWT will probably have to depend on greater support from liberal
foundations in order to reach its long-term goal. [23]

In the following, this article will introduce some of the
individuals who have given their support to launching this new media
network.

Founded in 2003, the founding committee of the Independent World
Television/The Real News consisted of 84 individuals, including Paul
Jay as chair. The committee includes well-known progressives such as
British member of parliament Tony Benn (UK), host of the
popular "Democracy Now!" program Amy Goodman (USA), media scholar
Robert McChesney (USA), media critic Danny Schechter (USA), literary
author Gore Vidal (USA), historian Howard Zinn (USA) and
journalist/author Naomi Klein (Canada).

Incidentally, Klein has provided a rare critical overview of the
Ford Foundations history. In her book, The Shock Doctrine, she
observes that the Ford Foundation was the "leading source of funding
for the dissemination of the Chicago School ideology throughout
Latin America". She adds,

"[Ford-funded institutions played a] …central role in the overthrow
of Chile's democracy, and its former students… appl[ied] their US
education in a context of shocking brutality. Making matters more
complicated for the foundation, this was the second time in just a
few years that its protégés had chosen a violent route to power, the
first case being the Berkeley Mafia's meteoric rise to power in
Indonesia after Suharto's bloody [1965-66] coup." [24]

The Benton Foundation is also well represented on the IWT founding
committee, with Gloria Tristani, Charles Benton and Mark Lloyd
(former general counsel to the Benton Foundation now a senior fellow
at the George Soros-linked Center for American Progress).

However, the IWT's founding committee also includes some people with
less progressive backgrounds such as Salih Booker, current executive
director of NED-funded group Global Rights, and former head of the
Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies Program, and former
program officer for the Ford Foundation in Eastern and Southern
Africa; Kenneth Roth, executive director of the NED-linked Human
Rights Watch; Kim Spencer, President of Link TV, and co-founder of
the NED-funded Internews; Shauna Sylvester, founder and executive
director of the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society
(IMPACS); and Jenny Toomey who until recently was the executive
director of the Future of Music Coalition, and now serves as the
program officer for Media and Cultural Policy at the Ford
Foundation.

Indeed, even radical media critics, like Robert McChesney, work
closely with these foundations, as his media reform group, Free
Press, has also obtained Ford Foundation monies; while as early as
March 1996, McChesney was a panel participant at the "Symposium of
The Future of Public Service Media" – an event that was sponsored by
both the Benton Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Given that Ford and Benton Foundations have extensive funding and
personal ties in so many projects of progressive social change it is
hardly surprising that most of the representatives of IWT's founding
committee also work for non-profit groups and projects that are
funded by the Ford Foundation. However, this almost `natural' state
of affairs should give us pause.

Conclusions

This article has focused on a small part of the philanthropic work
undertaken by two foundations, the Ford Foundation and the Benton
Foundation. Many other foundations are now engaged in ostensibly
progressive media work: for example, in 2005 the Carnegie
Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation launched
the Carnegie Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism
Education. It is no exaggeration to say such foundations wield
enormous influence over which organizations grow and flourish, and
which do not.

Those of us who take it as granted that the United States is a
plutocracy not a democracy, find in this state of affairs their
belief confirmed that the richest have access to society's financial
and political resources, and that they can engage in large-scale
social engineering to make sure civil society is shaped in a manner
compatible with their own elite interests. However, even activists,
researchers and theorists who believe the United States is (or at
least should be) a country of pluralism and representative democracy
should be concerned about the amount of money flowing from these
liberal foundations and begin documenting its effects on the
development of the American progressive mediascape.

The first step towards short-circuiting philanthropic colonization
of independent media systems, and civil society more generally, is
for progressive groups to collectively act to
delegitimize `charitable' manipulations. Yet if this process only
occurs within the most radical parts of civil society – i.e. by
groups that are already largely excluded from foundation funding –
then overall very little will change. Even if some less radical
groups presently supported by liberal foundations cut their ties to
liberal foundation funding, the outcomes will be limited. Though
this would swell the ranks of those operating outside of the liberal
foundation-civil society nexus, other groups and individuals who are
unaware (or unconcerned by) the problems associated with liberal
philanthropy will quickly move into their place. A critical part of
any campaign to encourage disassociation from elite funders needs to
see the undertaking a large-scale education campaign directed
towards the multitude of employees presently working within the non-
profit industrial complex. [25]

Furthermore, a broad coalition of progressive groups need to work to
problematize the current structure of civil society, and encourage
the creation of civil society groups that embody and promote
democratic principles rather than those that adopt corporate
organizational structures designed to maximize revenue streams.
Contrary to some progressive commentators' advice it is important to
remember that the non-profit sector does not have to be run like the
business sector: [26] The public already gives a vast amount of
money to charity each year. The problem is how this money is
distributed, by whom and to whom. Currently, unaccountable and elite-
run foundations distribute the public's money to a select group of
organizations who write proposals to fit the funder's philosophy and
who put their personnel on their boards. Diverting just a small
proportion of this substantial and growing flow of financial
resources toward truly progressive media projects – that is those
that embody democratic structures that are founded without support
of liberal philanthropists or foundations – will enable concerned
citizens and media activists to move more confidently toward
building a society with democratic structures.

Michael Barker is a British citizen based in Australia. Most of his
other articles can be found here.

Endnotes

[1] Brown, E. R. (1979), Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and
Capitalism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press;
Gottlieb, R. (1993), Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the
American Environmental Movement. Washington, D.C.: Island Press;
Jenkins, C. J. & Eckert, C. M. (1986), `Channeling Black Insurgency:
Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement Organizations in
the Development of the Black Movement,' American Sociological
Review, 51, pp. 812-829.

[2] Covington, S. (2005), `Moving Public Policy to the Right: The
Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations, ' in D. Faber &
D. McCarthy (Eds.), Foundations for Social Change: Critical
Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements (pp. 89-114).
Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

[3] Barker, M. J. (2008), `The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform?
Creating Sustainable Funding Opportunities for Radical Media
Reform,' Global Media Journal, 1 (2), June 2, 2008.

[4] Arnove, R. F. (1980), Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The
Foundations at Home and Abroad. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall; Barker, M.
J. (2008) The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting
the Rockefeller- Ford Connection,' Capitalism Nature Socialism, 19
(2), pp.15-42.; Lundberg, F. (1975), The Rockefeller Syndrome.
Secaucus, N.J.: L. Stuart; Roelofs, J. (2003), Foundations and
Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. Albany: State University of
New York Press.

[5] Feldman, B. (2007), `Report from the Field: Left Media and Left
Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest?' Critical Sociology, 33:3,
pp. 427-446.

[6] Horowitz, D. (1969a), `The Foundations: Charity Begins at Home,'
Ramparts, 7 (11), pp.38-48.; (1969b), `Billion Dollar Brains: How
Wealth Puts Knowledge in its Pocket,' Ramparts, 7 (12), pp.36-44.;
(1969c), `Sinews of Empire,' Ramparts, 8 (4), pp.32-42.

[7] Smith, A. (2007), `Introduction: The Revolution Will Not Be
Funded,' in INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. (Eds.), The
Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial
Complex (pp. 1-18). Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, p.4.

[8] Domhoff, G. W. (1970), The Higher Circles: The Governing Class
in America. New York: Random House; Mills, C. W. (1956), The Power
Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.

[9] Benton Foundation (2008), `Frequently Asked Questions,' Benton
Foundation.

[10] Barker, M. J. (2008), `Social Engineering, Progressive Media,
and the Benton Foundation,' A refereed paper presented to the
Australian & New Zealand Communication Association International
Conference, 2008: Power and Place, Massey University, Wellington,
New Zealand, July 9-11, 2008.

[11] EDC (2008), `Flagship Projects in EDC's History,' Education
Development Center.

[12] For a broad critique of USAID, see Weissman, S. (1974), The
Trojan Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid. San Francisco: Ramparts
Press.

[13] Kelly, P. J. (2004), `A Conversation with Charles and Marjorie
Benton,' Foundation News and Commentary, March/April 2004.

[14] Benton Foundation (2008), `Who We Are,' Benton Foundation.

[15] Benton Foundation (2005), `2005 Annual Report ,' Benton
Foundation. Available at
http://www.benton. org/benton_ files/ar05_ spreads.pdf Accessed on 28
April 2008.

[16] Barker, M. J. (2008), `Bill Gates as Social Engineer:
Introducing the World's Largest Liberal Philanthropist, ' A refereed
paper presented to the Australasian Political Science Association
conference, University of Queensland, July 6-9, 2008.

[17] For a critique see Barker, M. J. (2008) The Liberal Foundations
of Media Reform?

[18] The National Trust for Historic Preservation is currently
headed by Ford Foundation trustee, Richard Moe.

[19] Citations obtained from The Real News website in May 2008.

[20] Barker, M. J. (2008) `"Independent" Journalism Organizations
and a Polyarchal Public Sphere,' Center for Research on
Globalization. ??

[21] Barker, M. J. (2006). `Taking the Risk out of Civil Society:
HarnessingSocial Movements and Regulating Revolutions, ' Refereed
paper presented tothe Australasian Political Studies Association
Conference, University of Newcastle 25-27 September 2006.

[22] Dindar, S. (2007), `Heard the Independent News?' Ryerson Review
of Journalism.

[23] Dindar, S. (2007), `Heard the Independent News?' Ryerson Review
of Journalism.

[24] Klein, N. (2007), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism. New York: Random House, pp.145-6.

[25] INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. (2007), The
Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial
Complex. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press.

[26] C.f. Shuman, M. H. & Fuller, M. (2005), `The Revolution Will
Not Be Grant Funded,' Shelterforce, The Journal of Affordable
Housing and Community Building, Issue 143.