Following the Money, the Associated Press Moves Left

 

By 

Ira Stoll

At the end of a recently published Associated Press investigation into American tech companies “that have supported Israel’s wars” came a disclosure: “The Associated Press receives financial assistance from the Omidyar Network.”

The language indicates a shift at the media outlet, whose special White House access President Trump recently withdrew. The news-gathering cooperative was once funded largely by dues from member newspapers. Now it increasingly relies on handouts from left-leaning charities. Yet it insists its journalism is “independent” and “nonpartisan.”

Bloomberg estimates eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s fortune at $12.5 billion. Federal election records show he gave $1 million in March 2024 to the ACLU Voter Education Fund and $450,000 in 2016 to political-action committees opposing the Trump-Pence ticket.

Previous media spending by Mr. Omidyar, his wife and their network has supported stridently far-left and anti-Israel outlets, including the Intercept, which recently launched as an independent nonprofit, and In These Times. The Intercept has questioned the reporting of the New York Times on Hamas’s systematic sexual assault of Israelis. It also suggested that the Times is biased in favor of Israel because the current Times executive editor’s late father was active in a pro-Israel press-watchdog group. In These Times devotes an entire section to “Palestine” alongside “politics” and “opinion.” It cheers boycotts of Israel and smears the Jewish state’s war of self-defense as a “genocidal onslaught.”

The Omidyar Network’s grant to the AP is ostensibly to expand coverage of artificial intelligence, but somehow the funds paid for reporters to scrutinize Microsoft’s and Google’s use by the Israeli government. The AP had a hard-earned reputation for nonpartisanship. It’s sad to see that reputation rented to Omidyar and ruined for what appears to be a quarter-million-dollar grant.

That sum is a small share of the AP’s total foundation action. The AP’s 2023 annual report boasts of “81 grants totaling $60.9 million.” Other money comes from groups with agendas. The KR Foundation, a Denmark-based organization that backs “a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels,” is an AP funder. So is the Hewlett Foundation, which was a force behind Joe Biden’s inflationary spending policies. Hewlett has spent more than $2 million backing AP coverage.

A spokeswoman for AP told me that “each foundation goes through a thorough standards review to ensure its commitment to editorial independence” and that “AP retains complete editorial control over its journalism.” She said omitting Omidyar from a public list of AP’s funders was an “oversight” and will be corrected. The Omidyar Network didn’t reply to my questions.

One journalistic project unlikely to be funded by big foundations: energetic investigative coverage of the charities themselves—their out-of-touch politicized groupthink, extravagantly compensated executives and counterproductive spending.

Meanwhile, if Mr. Trump’s rollback of AP’s special access makes readers more skeptical, that may be healthy. For-profits can make the idealistic, evidence-based case that good journalism is good business. Perhaps in nonprofit journalism, both parties to the transaction will realize that when a news organization starts selling its reputation, its value diminishes. In any case, readers will figure it out.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/following-the-money-ap-moves-left-financial-assistant-omidyar-bias-80a3d31b