At the same time that taxpayer-funded NPR had a conniption about accurately being labeled “state-affiliated” media by Twitter, another prominent big-box news outlet was allowing a Western head of state to proofread its interview with him to assure full political quality control before publication.
Politico Europe is the European edition of the well-known news site devoted to covering American politics. On April 9, it ran an interview with French President Emmanuel Macron that made headlines due to Macron’s tough talk about the need for Europe to reduce its dependency on the US to avoid getting caught up in a potential conflict with China over Taiwan. Macron’s comments came as he flew back to France following a chummy three-day visit to the Asian communist superpower nation.
Note to Readers: We Have No Integrity
In an astonishing footnote posted below the interview, Politico Europe revealed that it had in essence granted Macron full editorial approval of the published text. The last sentence is key:
“As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and ‘proofreading’ all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.”
The cravenness of the note is only surpassed by the gall Politico’s editors displayed in pretending to care about journalistic principles as they meekly surrendered their professional independence to the self-interest of a powerful political newsmaker. The takeaways here paint a dismal picture of the dominant establishment press today.
First is the remarkable shamelessness now common among brand-name media outlets in believing that compromised journalistic standards can be made whole simply by adding a disclaimer at the end of adulterated “news articles.”
Liberty Nation in December documented how one faux “independent” news site, heavily touted in ruling establishment circles, plays this game. The Texas Tribune fully acknowledges that partisan groups fund it but wants you the reader to know that it’s no big deal since they are not allowed to influence its “journalism”:
“Donors and members subscribe to The Texas Tribune’s belief that promoting greater civic engagement and informed discourse is a direct route to a better and more productive Texas. They play no role in guiding the journalism produced by the Tribune or the planning and execution of events.”
And just like that you are supposed to ignore the fact that the Tribune reports on the activities of George Soros and Bill Gates as it takes money from these two leading globalist financial titans.
Bill Gates (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Big Media Take the Dirty Money
Our report showcased how Gates has “funded” news presentations from dozens of major-brand media outlets in the US and abroad that have also “reported” on him as a newsmaker over the years. Here is more detail on one example.
The German publication Der Spiegel is one of the largest weekly news magazines in Europe. In 2020, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, it published a ludicrously positive interview with Gates, who played a leading role in pushing vaccines, lockdowns and the entire dire social curb regimen of the time.
Der Spiegel has taken wads of money from Bill Gates. Der Spiegel is praising Bill Gates to the skies. Problem? Again, the answer is no, for, you see, there is an “About” box serving as a disclaimer:
“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which he runs with his wife, is by far the most powerful private charity foundation in the world. Since its founding 20 years ago, it has invested more than $20 billion in the development and distribution of life-saving vaccines, including recent investments in numerous projects aimed at developing a COVID-19 vaccine.
In addition to such research, the Gates Foundation also provides support to media outlets in the U.S. and Europe, including the Global Societies project at DER SPIEGEL, which has received a grant of around 2.3 million euros over a three-year period.”
This is the thoroughly corrupted ruling establishment media environment that permits Politico to feel it is perfectly acceptable to allow a French president to edit its news coverage.
And Politico is indeed tightly bound to that establishment. Par for the course in journalism ethics today, Politico has partnered with advocacy groups promoting political agendas on issues that it ostensibly covers as straight news. A review of several of the individual beat newsletters offered by Politico conducted by this writer in 2022 found them routinely being “sponsored” by partisan players intimately involved with the specific topics covered by the newsletter authors:
- Politico’s Global Insider newsletter was “Presented By [Soros’s] Open Society Foundations.”
- Its popular Playbook newsletter was sponsored by Facebook.
- An edition of the Politico Nightly newsletter was sponsored by a Hispanic group that advocates on behalf of illegal aliens.
- Goldman Sachs served as a sponsor of a World Economic Forum annual meeting Davos Playbook newsletter on January 24, 2020.
This is not journalism.
Emmanuel Macron (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
The Macron affair does not mark the first time that Politico has had its news coverage exposed as hideously compromised. In 2016, White House political correspondent Glenn Thrush was caught up in the Wikileaks John Podesta email files dump. Thrush was outed as gleefully allowing Podesta, Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, to review and correct an article written about him before publication.
“Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u,” Thrush messaged Podesta. “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this. Tell me if I f—ed up anything.”
What happened to Glenn Thrush after this scandal, which would undoubtedly be a career-ender in any profession that took ethical standards seriously? He now covers the Justice Department for The New York Times.
Big-box media today is beyond all repair, it seems.
