BREAKING: PBS to return John Arnold’s $3.5 million, following Pando exposé

[Triana]

Following Pando’s exclusive report on a secret financing deal between public broadcasting officials and the nation’s leading anti-pension activist, officials from PBS have announced they are returning the $3.5 million from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

In a breaking-news story published Friday afternoon, the New York Times credited PandoDaily for breaking the original story and ultimately for public broadcasting officials’ decision to return the money:

WNET, the New York City public television broadcaster, said Friday that it will return a $3.5 million grant it received to sponsor an ambitious project on public pensions amid charges that it solicited inappropriate underwriting for the series.

In the absence of the funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the project, called “Pension Peril,” will go on hiatus…

Earlier, following a critical report on Wednesday by David Sirota on the website PandoDaily, WNET officials said they were comfortable with the foundation’s funding. Mr. Sirota sharply criticized WNET for accepting the Arnold Foundation money because John Arnold, a former hedge fund manager, has financially backed efforts to convince municipalities to cut public employee pension benefits.

Earlier today, Pando reported on WNET and Arnold Foundation officials refusing to disclose the full details of their contract to allow Arnold to fund PBS’s anti-pension reporting. This deal appeared to violate PBS’s own clear conflict of interest rules, as Arnold has been the lead financier of the nationwide political campaign to cut retirement benefits for police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public workers.

THE REST:

http://pando.com/2014/02/14/nyt-pbs-to-return-john-arnolds-3-5-million-following-pando-expose/

[senseandsensibility]

1. PBS is just disgusting.

Thanks for posting this.

[Enrique]

2. way to go,Dave Sirota

[Z_I_Peevey]

7. Absolutely, he's been a great reporter n/t

[JaneyVee]

3. Now cut ties with the Koch Bros.

[Triana]

6. Yea, they should return Koch money too.

Those ties have been quite well exposed. Not sure what it will take to embarrass PBS into giving Koch $ back - but they damn well should do it.

[DeSwiss]

4. It's getting to be almost Zappa Time.

- K&R

[Enthusiast]

24. Yes. They can hardly hide it now even though the entire media is compromised.

Frank was certainly one insightful guy.

[El_Johns]

5. The folks at Pando, including Sirota, Mark Ames and others, are some of the only people doing actual

investigative journalism anymore.

And apparently it can still make a difference.

More, please.

And just as an FYI: the creator of Sesame Street, Joan Cooney, is married to Pete Peterson, financier whose wish list includes cuts to Social Security. He's got a foundation devoted to it.

Peter George "Pete" Peterson (born June 5, 1926) is an American businessman, investment banker, fiscal conservative, and author who served as United States Secretary of Commerce from February 29, 1972 to February 1, 1973. He is currently best known as founder and principal funder of The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which he established in 2008 with a $1 billion endowment. The group focuses on raising public awareness about U.S. fiscal-sustainability issues related to federal deficits, entitlement programs, and tax policies.[1]

From 2007 through 2011, Peterson contributed $458 million to his Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Many of the Foundations initiatives cast Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and various safety net programs that aid the poor as in a state of crisis, and in need of dramatic cuts.[14]

He succeeded David Rockefeller as Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1985 and served until his retirement in 2007. He currently serves as Trustee of the Rockefeller family's Japan Society and of the Museum of Modern Art, and was previously on the board of Rockefeller Center Properties, Inc.

He is married to Joan Ganz Cooney, a creator of Sesame Street, and a stepmother to Peterson's five children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_George_Peterson

Just one bit incestuous bed of finance capital everywhere you look.

[blogslut]

8. Careful cementing that pedestal

Sirota and Ames are good journalists but Pando isn't conflict-of-interest free:

Pando Spikes a Post Critical of a Company It Shares Investors With

The crookedest little bloghouse in Silicon Valley just hit a new low, it appears: A negative story about Birchbox, a beauty-product site with which Pando shares investors, was deleted shortly after being published. Unfortunately for Pando and the backers it loves so dearly, this is the internet, and nothing ever disappears.

The post—"Is Birchbox starting to hit some scaling woes?"—went up around 9 p.m. ET, and was quickly pulled down without notice. But various spammy aggregation websites republished the post (still available here), as is the case for pretty much any blog post out there, preserving a report that Birchbox is struggling to expand. The story recounted the woes of several anonymous Birchbox customers, who Pando says are flocking to competitors...

http://valleywag.gawker.com/pando-spikes-a-post-critical-of-a-company-it-shares-inv-1522118215

Tech Industry Buys Itself a Mouthpiece

How did Silicon Valleys bigwigs react when their favorite trade publication adopted strict new conflicts of interest policies? They banded together to pay someone else to cover them.

Former TechCrunch reporter Sarah Lacy today launched PandoDaily, and it has quite an impressive roster of investors, including, well, everyone: "Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Tony Hseih, Zach Nelson, Andrew Anker, Chris Dixon, Saul Klein, Josh Kopelman, Jeff Jordan and Matt Cohler... funds including the CrunchFund, Greylock Discovery Fund, Accel's Seed Fund, Menlo Ventures Talent Fund, Lerer Ventures, SV Angels and Ooga Labs." OK, not quite every address on Sand Hill Road, but a whole crapload of checkbooks for a wee $2.5 million round.

"It's a long list," Lacy conceded in the announcement. "And there is a simple reason we spread the syndicate widely: This is a news site built for the startup community, so the more of them that are a part of it, the better."

In other words, when all the people financing startups also finance coverage of the financing of startups, that's not a conflict of interest so much as an awesome inside track on scoops. Just ask Lacy's investor, contributor and ex-boss Mike Arrington, the TechCrunch co-founder forced out of his own publication when AOL's editorial director took very public umbrage at his plan to invest in the companies TechCrunch covered...

http://gawker.com/5876539/tech-industry-buys-itself-a-mouthpiece/@valleywagstaff

[El_Johns]

9. Not too worried. I don't think Sirota is actually "with" Pando, and Ames has only been there one

month, & only because the indie he was with, NSFW, failed financially and was sold to Pando.

None of which negates my point; that they are two of the few doing any real investigative reporting, along with Ames' former colleague Matt Taibbi from The Exiled in Russia and a few others.

Not to mention that no doubt there's a reason Gawker is highlighting conflict of interest at Pando v. the many other conflict of interest stories in every media venue in the country it could be covering.

We'll see how it pans out. I can't see Ames staying anywhere that attempted to censor him significantly.

[blogslut]

11. It's cool.

Something I learned from my newspaperman father: No media entity, no reporter, no story is unbiased. None. Always always keep that in mind.

[El_Johns]

12. Did I say there was some unbiased media entity or reporter? No, what I said was Sirota, Ames and

some others at Pando were some of the few doing any real investigative reporting, and I stand by that statement.

I was already aware of Pando's funding sources and had already read NSFW's account of the reasons for the sale, including the funders behind Pando.

Perhaps you're not aware that the folks at NSFW corp had a history of investigating the techies. So we'll see how it shakes out.

[blogslut]

13. sigh

I really wasn't trying to be confrontational. Sorry I commented.

[El_Johns]

14. Neither was I; but you seemed to be misreading my intent. If I've misread yours, my apologies.

[LiberalAndProud]

15. That bears repeating. If we always understand that there is bias, we at least know to look for it.

I, for one, am glad you commented.

[rickyhall]

10. I wish all these old white fascist bastards would away. . .

[pa28]

16. I'm glad they got nailed.

I'd rather see PBS go dark than spread misinformation for self interested billionaires.

[Faryn Balyncd]

17. If PBS wants to reclaim any legitimacy, they will return the Koch Brothers dirty propaganda money.

[Triana]

19. +1 n/t

[reddread]

18. reminds me of the Army psych-ops in CNN

huh? what? really?
GET THOSE GUYS OUT OF HERE!
OK, nothing to see here, show's over folks, move along...

[WillyT]

20. + 1,000,000,000... K & R !!!

[mountain grammy]

21. I used to listen to Sirota on am 760 in Denver..

He opened my eyes more than once. Good man.

[FairWinds]

22. Meanwhile, those cowards at PBS . .

are refusing to broadcast the award winning documentary (which they already partially paid for!!)
by Adam Horowitz - about the abuse of the Marshall Islands and their people
by the nuclear weapons establishment.
http://www.nuclearsavage.com/#!filmmaker
Please join me in calling out PBS on this outrage . .
Full disclosure - I have no connection whatsoever with Adam or the documentary
other than admiring its quality.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

23. THIS is why we fight. This is why DU , DailyKos

And other sites are so important. So we can fight through the fog and see what is really happening re: systematic attempt to fully take down regular Americans.

[zentrum]

25. Way to go Sirota! But....

....I'm not at all confident that the forces at PBS that made this deal in the first place are neutralized in any way.
PBS in general has been presenting news with right wing frames ever since Bush W's first year in office. That's 14 years of right wing drift.
Especially on the East Coast.

KALW in the SFBay Area still does some pro-labor, pro-99%, independently produced shows. But look how poorly PBS's chief new's honchos moderated various presidential debates. They were terrified of pressing any well researched questions. Look what they did to Bill Moyers---one of their best, highest rated journalists. Kicked him to the curb.