Corrupt media firm that cited corruption?
Post #1150
Matt Taibi and Walter Kirn just came out with an entertaining video talking about the $10,000 “subscriptions” that Politico was selling to the U.S. government by way of USAID. As high as the price of a used car, after selling gobs and gobs of them, they raked in $8 million from USAID. But Politico often reports on corruption.
When the people reporting on the corruption are taking Big Money from the people that they are supposed to be watching the most, then you get a moral dilemma stemming from a conflict of interest. Back in September 2017, Politico ran a story about Russian meddling into the 2016 election:
While admitting that buying off an election for a mere $150,000 could be a stretch, they still proudly forwarded the government-sanctioned Russia-seems-to-be-colluding-with-Trump (i.e., Trump is corrupt) story at the time:
Did their reporting on this story have anything to do with the proportionally-large share of their annual funding which was coming from Government Paymasters? After COVID hit, Politico ran stories about how you can reach Herd Immunity from vaccination, as long as you reach 70% of the population:
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Later on, they ran stories about moved goalposts requiring that up to 85% of the population would have to be vaccinated to guarantee Herd Immunity:
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While they were wrong the whole time — i.e., COVID shots are not capable of creating Herd Immunity to COVID — they had kept running these pieces which kept indirectly shaming vaccine-holdouts for arbitrarily extending the pandemic by not listening to government officials telling them how to get to Herd Immunity.
By insinuating election fraud in 2016, and by helping to disparage COVID skeptics, it looks like Politico was “carrying water for” the US government during that time when a large share of their funding was coming from USAID.
Reference
[Politico reports on $150k of election interference in 2016 election] — https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/06/facebook-ads-russia-linked-accounts-242401
[Politico communicates the idea that 70% vaccine coverage induces Herd Immunity] — https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/18/vaccine-skeptics-coronavirus-europe-265790
[Politico communicates the idea that 85% vaccine coverage induces Herd Immunity] — https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/21/vaccine-skeptics-outreach-484124