For the last few weeks, I’ve been finalizing some intensive research and was in the process of writing up a multi-part post that was to be published after the mid-term elections. One of the installments in the series will focus on the left’s push for a public takeover of the media – touching upon everything from the historical aspect of traditional media’s financial collapse, to the left’s “Media Reform” project and “New Public Media” plan, to the complete portfolio of George Soros’ media investments.

However, in light of the most recent onslaught of attacks against Andrew Breitbart and the Big sites, I thought it might be prudent to extract a few different elements from this future series and publish an early post today. Because given the concerted efforts to use a variety of media and advocacy outlets to manufacture falsehoods in an attempt to intimidate and silence the voice of conservatives, I thought it important for others to see how –and why – some of these media outlets are connected. Because it extends well beyond Media Matters, NPR, and Huffington Post.

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While the debate continues to rage over the prospect of defunding National Public Radio (NPR) of its federal taxpayer dollars in the wake of Juan Williams’ firing, the left is busy tending to its strategy. They’ve once again taken to opining about their Utopian notion of a national public media system, hoisting it as the antidote to partisan viewpoint peddling. And by partisan viewpoints, they mean those that aren’t *their* viewpoints.

The left’s fantasies were further spotlighted by several recent developments in the media industry, only weeks and days apart from one another.

  • On October 2, NPR announces $1 million grant from the Knight Foundation
  • On October 7, Center for Public Integrity, an often cited source for liberal journalists, announces a $1.7 million grant from the Knight Foundation. CPI has also received millions in funding from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, including another recent grant of $100,000.
  • On October 17, NPR announces a $1.8 million grant from George Soros’ Open Society Institute
  • On October 18, the Huffington Post announces the merger of its non-profit journalism arm into the Center For Public Integrity, with an additional $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation for the merger.
  • On October 20, Media Matters announces a $1 million grant from George Soros’ Open Society Institute
  • On October 26, Google announces a $2 million grant to the Knight Foundation for media innovation

In the midst of this funding blitz, the left quickly summoned its boycotts and attempts at silencing voices against the right:

To set up this picture, take note that only weeks before this flurry of activity, the NY Times ran an article that focused on big donors who are cutting support to Democrats during this election.

For Mr. Soros, who was also a big donor in 2006 and 2008, it is a matter of being more focused on pushing to get the policy outcomes he wants than on the electoral process, [Soros adviser] Mr. Vachon said.

…The attention of Mr. [Peter] Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance, also appears to be elsewhere this year. Jennifer Frutchy, who advises Mr. Lewis on his philanthropy, said he was focused at the moment on “building progressive infrastructure and marijuana reform.”

These statements from two of the left’s most reliable big donors hints at the premise of my series of posts to come. Investing in elections is soon to become a strategy of the past on the left. Elections are temporary; they lose momentum; their outcomes are not dependable. The only solution for pushing a progressive agenda onto the American people with a majority of acceptance is by way of public opinion. By embedding it into the daily lives of average Americans.

Consider for example that innovations like social media and smart phones were so well advertised, so readily available, so addictive that they quickly became a way of life for Americans without most ever consciously taking notice of any potential negative consequences. Do we speak in spurts of 140 characters now? Have our attention spans been shortened? Are we less personable as a society? Has bullying become easier to do? Are we ever tooaccessible now? Have such innovations extended our work time to 24 x 7 and our personal/family time to close to zero?

Now imagine progressivism infiltrating society in the same viral way as the next cool new smart phone or iPad. It’s perhaps simplifying things a bit, but I think you get the point. It stands a far better chance at succeeding than through the fair process of those pesky things called elections. Only by the time it’s become popular culture, we can’t keep up with its negative impacts.

George Soros often lives and breathes in the world of Orwell in public, calculating his moves much in the same as he would in the setting of Orwell’s book, 1984. He calls conservative commentators purveyors of “Newspeak.” He has referred to FOX News as the “Ministry of Truth” and calls supporters of free markets and constitutionally limited government “market fundamentalists.” He calls America a democracy (as opposed to what it really is, a Republic). And anyone who does not embrace progressivism is deemed a right-wing extremist.

But George Soros is much more than just some donor with a lot of money. As much as I hate to admit it, the man is a brilliant strategist. I’ve been researching him for over ten years. Soros knows full well that Democrats could never deliver progressivism to the American people. He also understands that a third party of such a nature would never work, either. No, Soros knows full well that the only way to influence the change he wants to see is through media, not through elections. And with the traditional media being in such financial ruins, the time is ripe to tear it the rest of the way down and rebuild it from the ground up with his investments. Doing so first enables Soros to implement the non-profit investigative journalism network that will focus on the policies that he supports. That establishes the framework for an entirely publicly funded media industry to follow, each outlet committing to the very guidelines that will influence the public’s support of progressive policy.

It’s not exactly a new plan. It’s been in place for several years already; the financial state of the current media simply accelerates the plan’s implementation. Oddly enough, it’s NPR that would provide one of the primary platforms, Argo, for connecting state and local news provider websites, similar to the AP wire. Additional think tank outlets funded by Soros, like the Center for Public Integrity, which just merged the Huffington Post Investigative Fund under its wing, will serve as the shared pool of investigate journalists to news outlets. Gone are the days in which reporters actually did their own background investigation on their stories in order to be knowledgeable of the subject. Now they’ll simply have five or six sources to pump out policy area research, from which they can pick and choose and credit the source. The ultra liberal outlet FreePress published a report in May that outlines some of this plan in detail, New Public Media: A Plan for Action. (More on that in a future post).

Quite like a progressive news assembly line, isn’t it?

But the key to building this permanent progressive infrastructure that the left consistently mentions will be the full portfolio of Soros funded media outlets. Now, Soros of course isn’t the only funder on most of these, but he’s certainly the brains behind the strategy. And you’ll notice over time that the same network of funders are contributing to the same outlets. This is no accident either.

Below is merely a partial snapshot of the media outlets that Soros funds (source: 2008-current 990 filings; note: Huffington Post recently merged w/ Soros funded Center for Public Integrity).

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Take note of an organization like The Media Consortium. This is the umbrella for a network of media member organizations that commit to certain guidelines in order to belong to it:

We continued the conversation through 2005, expanding the participants to include many more media organizations. Our goal was to figure out how this network of independent media organizations could address two challenges we all face:

  • How to increase independent journalism’s voice in broader public debates about the crucial political and social issues of our day.
  • How to navigate the current wave of profound technological change that is reshaping the media business and redefining the practice of journalism itself.

In early 2006, we coalesced to become The Media Consortium…

According to its website, a participating member of The Media Consortium must have:

  • A journalism-driven mission
  • Staff and organizational capacity to participate in projects that benefit the organization and the Consortium
  • The commitment of senior leadership to personally participate in Media Consortium activities, projects, and meetings
  • A mission that promotes progressive ideals

    • (For a complete list of The Media Consortium’s members, click here.)

Not exactly unbiased journalism. And it only takes but one glance at the partial portfolio above of media outlets that Soros is funding to realize that this is about far more than good-hearted philanthropy. This is empire building in progress. And I haven’t even included the think tanks and advocacy organizations yet. The bigger this gets, the more we can expect to see of the lies from the left, the story manipulations, the attempts to undermine this very website, the boycotts and the assaults on free speech. After all, their new media empire is their new hope for a progressive America. Forget about voter fraud from now on, they’ve given up on elections. They’re moving on to propaganda journalism. We’re seeing it already, and this is just the beginning. As Soros himself would say, it’s Newspeak.

Stay tuned for the full series on the Soros Media Empire.