The Covid-19 – Holocaust Comparison, Part 5 – Who’s Funding the Fact-Checkers?
The Covid-19 – Holocaust Comparison, Part 5 – Who’s Funding the Fact-Checkers?
by Dan Fournier, Review, published Monday, May 1, 12:00 EDT on fournier.substack.com
Image source.
This is the fifth post in a six-part review of the documentary film called Never Again Is Now Global.
The series is structured as follows:
The Covid-19 – Holocaust Comparison, Part 5 (this post)
> Parts 1 to 4 Recap
> Episode 5 – Never Give In - Never Give Up
- 5.1 Monica Felgendreher on who is funding the fact-checking outfits
- 5.2 Supplement: The WHO & its own Network of Fact-Checkers
> Summary & Conclusion (for Part 5)The Covid-19 – Holocaust Comparison, Part 6 - Conclusion & eBook
The Covid-19 – Holocaust Comparison, Part 5 – Who’s Funding the Fact-Checkers?
Parts 1 to 4 Recap
Part 1 of this six-part series presented the documentary film under review, Never Again Is Now Global, and the methodology to examine its merits from an independent and objective lens.
For this, key claims (shown hereunder) from each episode of the documentary film are presented and evaluated. Here is what has been examined thus far:
Part 1:
1.1 Dr. Vladimir Zelenko on the deliberate suppression of early treatment
1.2 Rabbi Michoel Green on the parallels between the Holocaust and the Covid-19 Pandemic
1.3 Dr. Hervé Seligmann on false science and disinformationPart 2:
2.1 Dr. Vladimir Zelenko on AIDS caused by the Covid-19 vaccines
2.2 Vera Sharav on global concentration of power
2.3 Joshua Stylman on the violation of the Nuremberg Code & international lawsPart 3:
3.1 Vera Sharav on the Eugenics Movement & the Gates Family
3.2 Vera Sharav on Transhumanism
3.3 Vera Sharav on how Covid-19 was planned BiowarfarePart 4:
4.1 Dr. Michael Yeadon former Pfizer VP on the absurdity of Covid-19 measures
4.2 Dr. Michael Yeadon on planned Digital IDs & CBDCs
Episode 5 – Never Give In – Never Give Up
The fifth episode (click the link to watch) aired on January 30, 2023.
The same methodology for a review of this fourth part of the docuseries applies, but this time only one claim will be scrutinised on the merits of its accuracy and validity – mostly through a thorough examination and verification of they key allegations and associated facts.
5.1 Monica Felgendreher on who is funding the fact-checking outfits
Near the 1:05:45 mark, Monica Felgendreher, and artist and activist living in Berlin, Germany, contends that many of the fact-checking outfits concerned with verifying Covid-19-related information are not impartial, for she questions who is funding them.
“It’s incredible that people believe that it’s okay to have fact-checkers and they don’t even look who’s paying them. This cannot last forever…We have censorship right now on everything that’s critical.”
During this segment several images of fact-checking outfits appear on screen such as Politifact, Snopes, FactCheck.org, CIR (Center for Investigative Reporting), and Poynter, followed by an animated infographic which displays links (relationships) across these entities.
Screenshot of media and foundation relationships infographic from Never Give In – Never Give Up of Never Again is Now Global depicting cross relationships between fact-checking outfits and their funders.
It is thus important to verify whether this claim holds merit since these outfits offer information in the form of articles and fact checks about Covid-19 to the global public.
It is no secret that funding usually comes with strings attached. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” the old saying goes.
The main funders listed in the infographic flashed on screen include billionaire George Soros (and his foundations), the Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Logan Foundation, and the Democracy Fund.
Other outfits listed in the infographic include the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and non-profit media organisations such as ProPublica and Media Matters for America.
It is worthwhile to have a closer look at what some of these outfits do, who figures among their top executives, their funding activities, and also what influence they provide on the coverage of Covid-19 related information, including fact-checking.
The Poynter Institute for Media
The Poynter Institute describes itself as a “global leader in journalism.”
“It is the world’s leading instructor, innovator, convener and resource for anyone who aspires to engage and inform citizens,” it follows continuing “Poynter champions freedom of expression, civil dialogue and compelling journalism that helps citizens participate in healthy democracies.”
In their 2021/22 Impact Report, they boast that PolitiFact.com is Poynter’s fact-checking site, also affirming that Poynter is the headquarters of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) for which it states it has created a code of principles to promote standards and transparency for fact-checking with signatories from 133 countries. That is quite an impressive network, to say the least.
But right off the bat, you can already spot an non-transparent and possible bias about a topic of great importance in world headlines, namely towards Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine War, for on the same page it states the following [with emphasis added]:
“In 2021, the IFCN administered $3 million in grants to journalists, academics and researchers, and is now leading a global collaboration to fight disinformation about the war in Ukraine.”
For a supposedly transparent organisation for fact-checking, they issue $3 million in grants to fight “disinformation.” No information is provided as to how they determine what disinformation regarding this conflict is. Moreover, providing grants to journalists, academics, and researchers already poses potential conflicts of interests, as they similarly do in science.
While many examples can be cited regarding Poynter’s own misinformation about the Russia-Ukraine War, here is but one obvious one. On their fact-checking article titled Global fact-checkers unite to battle disinformation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the outfit boasts of its own #UkraineFacts database which supposedly debunks disinformation about the war. Yet, on its home page you can see the following reference about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (bottom right) that is completely false:
Screenshot of ukrainefacts.org taken on April 24, 2023.
If one clicks on the Zelensky article the following window appears:
While a lot of the bullet points say that Zelensky’s statement was misrepresented or taken out of context, the real video, as this author revealed in a prior post, shows otherwise (watch from the 03:00 mark):
Here is what Zelensky sated verbatim (translated into English):
“The U.S. will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the same way as we are sending our sons and daughters to war. And they will have to fight because it’s nature that we’re talking about. And they will be dying, God forbid, because it’s a horrible thing.”
So, unless this author has been duped by a deep fake (i.e., a doctored video), the fact is that Zelensky did utter these words, as is presented in this primary source.
Consequently, for Poynter to report otherwise provides a clear instance of their bias in their so-called fact-checking.
If this is what the general public is to make of Poynter’s fact-checking activities, then how will they be able to retain credibility with their similar endeavour in the #CoronaVirusFacts Alliance to fight so-called misinformation surrounding Covid-19?
While there are many such false and misleading posts from Poynter’s network of fact-checkers, including Healthfeedback.org (more on them later), here is but one instance; in their fact-check post titled NO EVIDENCE: “The FDA hid the evidence that HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] was effective in the early treatment of the disease. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of this lie.” dated 2022/09/21 they fail to provide a link to the specific large clinical trial study they say doesn’t show hydroxychloroquine provides benefits to COVID-19 patients. This lacks transparency for, it is like we are just to take their word for it (that no such study exists).
In addition, in their linked Health Feedback article, they state “Smaller clinical trials found that early treatment with HCQ didn’t provide significant benefits to patients compared to placebo,” which is patently false.
Author note: Poynter’s network of fact-checkers which includes HealthFeedback.org, among others, will be further scrutinised in section 5.2 Supplement: The WHO & its own Network of Fact-Checkers of this post.
In Part 1 of this review series, this author pointed to the work from the same, highly-acclaimed, Dr. Harvey Risch (which Poynter tries to discredit) in this paper, published on May 27, 2020, stating that there was indeed clinical trials (from Dr. Vladimir Zenlenko) which showed success in early treatment with HCQ.
This one instance shows how Poynter is not being honest in their fact-checking, but rather appear intent on discrediting the renowned Epidemiologist from Yale who is one of the most respected and published practitioners in his field.
While the outfit as a whole shouldn’t be rejected outright based on just a few incorrect claims as shown above, it certainly leaves much to be desired on whether they truly represent a transparent and independent source for news verification.
Lastly, with regards to it stated values of accuracy, independence, and fairness, it has indicatively proved otherwise by including the following video on the last page of their 2021-2022 Impact Report by comedian John Oliver with regards to the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines:
“but our best way out of this mess, long term, is clearly vaccines. – John Oliver”
Really?
A comedian used by the fact-checking outfit to attest to the viability of the Covid-19 vaccine?
Poynter’s top funders can be viewed here which include the Knight Foundation and support from the Democracy Fund, Meta, the Google News Initiative, and Microsoft, among others.
PolitiFact.org
As observed in the previous section above, PolitiFact is one of many fact-checking outfits from the Poynter Institute and it is quite a well-known fact-checking organisation, at least in North-America.
It describes itself as a “nonpartisan fact-checking website to sort out the truth in American politics.” Having been acquired by the Poynter Institute, it has access to the same funders.
Media giants Google, Meta (Facebook), Tiktok, and YouTube also contribute to its revenues, along with many other funders such as Microsoft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund, and others.
PolitiFact is perhaps most famous for its Truth-O-Meter visual tags provided in fact-checking articles which makes it easy for their viewers to determine the validity of a claim.
PolitiFact article showing indicating a “False” attribution in its Truth-O-Meter (top-right).
As the outfit has a huge partnership with Meta and provides fact-checks for Facebook and Instagram posts which accounts for a mammoth amount of fact-checking on the world’s largest social media platform. For this partnership as well as the one with TikTok, another social media giant, PolitiFact fact-checkers examine posts and provide feedback to the social media companies as to the accuracy of the claims made in the posts. But they state that while PolitiFact determines the accuracy of the posts, TikTok and Facebook decide what, if any, action to take on their platforms.
Their methodology page has a video which explains how they select facts to check whereby a very small set of only about a few dozen PolitiFact journalists examine the claims.
While these fact checkers are bound to an ethics policy to avoid “biases and ensure independence and fairness,” they are not experts in fields as complex as those they report on such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Covid-19 disease. Accordingly, using such staff to verify claims (as complex as associated excess deaths, cancers, and gain of function research is certainly well beyond the level of expertise that is required to properly verify such claims. Is it not?
And while the fact checkers will be transparent to include certain experts in related fields (such as in Report proves that COVID-19 vaccines caused 300,000 excess deaths in 2022), it remains that these are merely opinions of select individuals and seldom include counter-opinions or peer-reviewed studies to support the claim under question.
As such, the process employed by PolitiFact is carelessly irresponsible, lacks proper ethics in the respective field of study, and can thus cause medical misinformation or disinformation that thousands, if not millions, might rely on while reading their Facebook and TikTok warnings.
In addition, the overall quality of posts found in the coronavirus section of their website are of poor quality.
For instance, in the post "Biden admin negotiates deal to give WHO authority over US pandemic policies,” the fact-checker Jeff Cercone incorrectly states that “The draft doesn’t enable WHO to dictate pandemic responses to the U.S. or any country.” As was extensively outlined in Part 2 of this series, the WHO would indeed have the power and authority to supersede the constitutions and laws of 194 member countries, removing decision making away from democratically elected governments, as was referenced by no less than six of the WHO’s own documents. And this was before more documents have been published by the WHO regarding their sought rights over nations and their health agencies.
As for another example, their post titled “Pfizer just got caught doing gain of function to mutate covid intentionally for vaccines,” by Madison Czopek – who has no apparent training or credentials whatsoever in health or medicine – is also quite weak.
In it, she refers to a claim “going around the internet [that] takes a more nefarious view, saying that in a quest for profit, vaccine researchers [at Pfizer] tried to make the virus more dangerous,” which she desperately tries to disprove, mostly on the basis of labeling the claim as an absolute “gain-of-function research,” and with two related tweets.
This is a common tactic for fact-checkers, they alter important terms in contention to deviate from the original claim. The original claim in this story by Project Veritas was that Pfizer was performing “directed evolution” research, not “gain-of-function,” as the fact-checker states.
It is clear from Pfizer’s own website that they are engaged activities related to both of these kinds of research, including gene-editing and “directed evolution” itself, as can be confirmed by the pharmaceutical giant’s own web page from 2022 (archived here) in which they praise the work of IGNITE (archived here):
Screenshot (with added emphasis in red) taken on 2023-05-01. Source: Pfizer Investor Insights: Using Viruses to Fight Cancer: A New Approach to Treating Solid Tumors, March 1, 2022, URL: https://insights.pfizer.com/using-viruses-to-fight-cancer-a-new-approach-to-treating-solid-tumors/ (also archived here)
Former Pfizer insider and patent expert Karen Kingston recently elaborated on such “directed evolution” research in her interview on Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com.
Though PolitiFact’s fact-checker does reference an infamous video of the claim whereby Jordan Trishton Walker, Pfizer’s Director for Worldwide R&D Strategic Operations boasted (on hidden camera) about his company exploring a way to "mutate" COVID via "Directed Evolution" in order to anticipate new strains for their Covid-19 vaccine [for additional profit-making], she fails to link to the primary source which completely confirms Walker’s incriminating statements.
Accordingly, Czopek’s piece merely dances around the issue, relying instead on two other weak Newsweek and Forbes fact-checking articles on the subject, a 2016 Washington Post article questioning James O’Keefe’s [from Project Veritas] under-cover tactics, and a 2020 New York Times article stating Pfizer’s early vaccine data shows its shot is 90% effective.
The obvious lack of objectivity, clear bias, and utter incompetence speaks for itself, dragging the whole PolitiFact facade and reputation down with it.
Snopes
Snopes is a fact-checking site that has been around for many years.
They seem to be more open with their disclosures and don’t appear have any major funders that were previously mentioned; and those who make contributions of over $10,000 will be listed.
Snopes team of writers and editors cover selected news articles and does fact checks.
Snopes covers Covid-19 contentions, though those who write on them do not appear to have any health- or medical-related training or relevant background experience.
As for the accuracy of their fact-checking, it would be best to evaluate them piece by piece.
In Part 4 of this series, I wrote about how Snopes had inaccurately covered a scientific research paper on pandemic lockdowns by Johns Hopkins University for which I had contacted its principal author regarding Snopes. In his reply, he provided me with an extended version of the paper which specifically dealt with fact-checking sites’ criticisms regarding their paper as ‘Appendix II: The Anatomy of the Negative Spin-Meisters’ which said the following about the Snopes review:
“Snopes, which advertises itself as a “fact-checking” website, was quick to jump on the bandwagon. A few hours after the Science Media Centre press release, Snopes published a report that contained eight criticisms, Evon (2022). Of those, five were lifted from the Science Media Centre press release. And three new but irrelevant “criticisms” were added, see Figure 20 and footnote 121.”
To be fair, compared to PolitiFact Snopes appears more thorough in some of its pieces.
An interesting case in point is their post titled Breaking Down the Project Veritas Video About Pfizer Purportedly Exploring 'Mutating' COVID-19.
Unlike with the PolitiFact piece mentioned above which covers the same topic, Snopes at least provides many relevant and well-sourced references on the topic and more prudently questions the allegations. They were more thorough. They have repeatedly contacted Pfizer for comment, and even sent emails to the Pfizer employee at the center of the controversy, Jordan Trishton Walker, which did not bounce back – proving an email account existed at Pfizer for a worker under that name. In addition, they linked to the official response from Pfizer (Pfizer Responds to Research Claims).
However, it fails to provide an actual verdict on the matter, keeping it as a “developing” story. And this despite the fact that Pfizer never denied that Mr. Walker was under their employment or contract. This fact coupled with other evidence provided in their story such as his prior LinkedIn page attesting to his work at Pfizer, should have merited a “true” claim on the matter.
On an interesting side note, there are two prior links to Mr. Walker’s LinkedIn page. Neither can be displayed on the Wayback Machine; the latter link provides dates of various backups with the earliest dating January 26, 2023 – the day before the story broke, yet if one clicks on the link a blank page appears (which is totally unusual for the Wayback Machine). Make of this what you will.
FactCheck.org
FactCheck.org’s funding page does mention that its initial founders were principally comprised of the Annenberg Foundation and the Flora Family Foundation (which is actually the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation). The Annenberg Foundation still contributes funds to this day (2023).
Accordingly, it is worthwhile to note that both of these foundations have financially supported Planned Parenthood with the latter very much concerned with population control issues, having funded the Population Council, among other similar outfits. InfluenceWatch notes the following about the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation [original links included]:
“Since its first year of grantmaking in 1967, for example, Hewlett’s population program has continuously supported Planned Parenthood, the combative abortion-rights association and abortion provider.”
And,
“Hewlett granted nearly $100 million to Planned Parenthood between 2000 and 2016, and as of 2017, is the organization’s second largest private benefactor after the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.”
The Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation is the one from billionaire Warren Buffet which is one of the largest funders of population control measures, as per InfluenceWatch:
“STBF is a quiet but massive financial supporter of pro-abortion activities and population control policies. It is reportedly the largest non-governmental funder of “reproductive health and family planning” in the world, including substantial investments in abortion and contraceptives. 5 One estimate found that STBF had given over $1.2 billion to organizations which advocate for pro-abortion policy, perform elective abortions, or helped develop the chemical abortion pill RU-486. As of 2012, STBF had provided nearly $300 million to the controversial abortion clinic network Planned Parenthood and its national headquarters, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). 6”
Leonore Annenberg (bottom-right) appearing with other power brokers such as George Soros, David Rockefeller, William Gates Sr., Ted Turner, and Brooke Astor (with the black hat).
Leonore Annenberg (seated, bottom-middle) appearing at the same event. Notice the presence of media giants in Ted Turner, Richard Dean Parsons, Tom Brokaw, Judy Woodruff, Barbara Walters, along with philanthropists George Soros, David Rockefeller (behind B. Walters), William Gates Sr., Ted Turner, and Brooke Astor, and, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The two photographs displayed above seem to come from 2001 for which most of the people in the photograph were Honorees of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy for the 2001 edition. Apart from the honorees, prominent members of the American media were present, as listed in the caption. In addition, and, quite oddly, Dr. Anthony Fauci was present at the event. Back in 2001 he was serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Without wanting to speculate about the coincidental present of Dr. Fauci, one has to wonder why he was present with the likes of the Annenbergs, Gates’, and Rockefeller who have strong leanings about and who donate to population control causes.
In addition, PolitiFact receives funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. According to Wikipedia, its founder – Robert Wood Johnson II was the son of Robert Wood Johnson I of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) pharmaceutical empire and he left 10,204,377 shares of Johnson & Johnson stock to the foundation upon his death in 1968.
It should be noted that Johnson & Johnson was one of the leading pharmaceutical firms which provided experimental Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
In addition, as was flashed in this part of the docuseries, the current President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is Richard E. Besser who also happened to be the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2009, but worked there for 13 years.
It doesn’t take long to see what types of causes Richard Besser supports, at least from his Twitter feed.
June 15, 2022 tweet (archived here) from Richard E. Besser.
Though at first glance the tweet’s text and the referenced article – Youth and gender-affirming care: let’s start with ‘do no harm’ – appears to protect children, a closer look reveals that it staunchly advocates for the use of puberty blocking medications and even irreversible surgical interventions to change genders for minors, though they sugar-coat it as “gender-affirming care.” The piece is deceptively manipulative and worrisome, to say the least. And it should be noted that the outfit behind it, Stat News, is Boston Globe Media which is known for funding eugenics outfits such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York and George Soros’ pro-abortion Foundation to Promote Open Society. Moreover, Stat News’ Executive Team is comprised of Linda Henry, the CEO of Boston Globe Media Partners (of The Boston Globe fame) who is listed on the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s website. It is also most likely no coincidence that the WEF is a strong promoter of the LGBTQ agenda.
In addition, during the pandemic Richard Besser also heavily promoted the Covid-19 vaccines to, and for children. One of Besser’s tweets was about NBC Nightly News Kids Edition (December 9, 2021) in which he directly answered childrens’ questions about the Covid-19 vaccines. In another tweet, he points to how Sesame Street “a great way to get COVID vaccine questions answered.” Keep in mind this is coming from a former CDC Director and that these vaccines were experimental at the time with associated risks; yet, none of these risks were ever touched upon by either Besser or NBC News.
Moreover, as CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation many would argue that he is not impartial, for the foundation is funded by one of the Covid-19 vaccine (Johnson & Johnson) manufacturers. Though this author is not a legal or advertising expert, suffice it to say that such kind of behavior remains highly questionable, and perhaps even unethical or immoral.
Getting back to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation itself, let it be observed that its Chief Operation Officer (COO) of the foundation is Melvin J. Galloway who also has strong eugenics leanings, for prior to his post at the foundation, Galloway “served as the executive vice president and chief operating office for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund.”
Planned Parenthood receives grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and champions other causes, including “environmental justice” (climate change) and “LGTBTQ+ justice” for which FactCheck’s articles seem to disproportionately defend.
As was clearly exhibited in Part 3 of this review series, Planned Parenthood has an unwavering legacy veiled in eugenic programs which continue to this day.
On their funding page, FactCheck does state the following:
“SciCheck’s COVID-19/Vaccination Project is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.”
Though they do add the disclaimer “The foundation has no control over our editorial decisions, and the views expressed on our website do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation,” viewers would be hard-pressed to find any negative news about pharma giant Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of one of the leading Covid-19 vaccines.
In fact, their COVID-19 Misconceptions page makes poor attempts to disparage contentions which oppose prescribed narratives by using labels such as “Conspiracy Theories” and by largely dismissing claims that counter those narratives.
For example, they outrightly dismiss any possibility that those who have “died suddenly” was due to them taking the Covid-19 experimental vaccines even though plenty of medical evidence exists to corroborate it, not excluding compelling testimonies from embalmers in the field such as the licensed funeral director and embalmer Laura Jeffery from Canada, among others in the field.
In another example, they incorrectly state that No Evidence Pfizer Conducting Any Inappropriate Coronavirus Experiments, for evidence which has been presented above undeniably states otherwise.
Moreover, it is difficult to claim that the foundation has “no control” over any editorial decisions. Firstly, in their SciCheck section which “focuses exclusively on false and misleading scientific claims,” they actually published a February 27, 2021 article titled A Guide to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 Vaccine which inherently compromises the fact-checking outfit’s objectivity when providing information on claims related to J&J. Moreover, its author, Lori Robertson, is a journalist with no health- or medical-related training.
Despite claims of transparency and independence, it doesn’t take long to see where the lion’s share of funding for FactCheck’s activities come from. These are very powerful entities with deep pockets; accordingly, one would have to be extremely naïve to think that such funding is void of influence.
CIR (Center for Investigative Reporting)
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) is described as a non-profit investigative journalism organisation which publishes on its Reveal News as well as in public radio and podcasts.
Its predominant entity, Reveal News posits that their bottom line is “the public interest,” also stating that they have “the courage, freedom and independence to dedicate our entire newsroom to this work because we’re powered by support from foundations, individual donors, and readers and listeners like you.”
But, as InfluenceWatch notes, the CIR is “is funded by many left-of-center grantmaking nonprofits, including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Tides Foundation,” of which some of these financial ties were mentioned by Monica Felgendreher.
Actually, they have many more funders which are stated on their website and in InfluenceWatch’s section on the matter, not excluding the Ford Foundation, Democracy Fund, the Knight, Tides, and Logan foundations, in addition to the aforementioned Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Incontrovertibly, the outfit is quite charged with the same kind of powerful players as the other fact-checking outfits under examination in this work.
Such a consistent pattern across these fact-checking organisations cannot be merely coincidental.
Jonathan Logan, the founder and CEO of the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, figures among Reveal News’ Board of Directors.
And, according to InfluenceWatch, the foundation provides grants to InsideClimate News, a center-left environmentalist media website which “publishes content supporting the theories of catastrophic manmade climate change and global warming.” Accordingly, it would come as no surprise that Reveal News seldom publishes anything that counters the prevalent narratives surrounding climate change and global warming. Their news headlines on the matter wreak of climate doom warnings.
In addition, as is stated in Jonathan Logan’s Berkeley Journalism page, his foundation has provided grants to ProPublica, known for its left-leaning bias, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – two significant outfits in journalism. Accordingly, his and his foundation’s impact on journalism is quite noteworthy.
In terms of editorial independence and integrity, it is not difficult to see that articles published on the site for certain sections are lopsidedly anti-Trump, pro-DEI, pro-open-borders, pro-abortion and reproductive rights.
Media Matters for America
As a left-leaning media outfit that is mostly pro-Democrat, it is overtly critical of “right-wing media,” and Fox News in particular.
As per InfluenceWatch, Media Matters for America was founded with $2 million in funding from wealthy progressives funneled through the Tides Foundation with additional funding from MoveOn.org and the New Democrat Network; in 2010, George Soros, the billionaire who founded the Open Society Foundations, which has generously funded Planned Parenthood and the Population Council, gave the group $1 million.
There is also a connection between Media Matters and former U.S. Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton as was referenced in the infographic shown near the beginning of this post. Media Matters’ founder David Brock who was once a fierce opponent of Hillary Clinton later became her and her Democratic Party’s staunch ally, fiercely opposing Donald Trump and the Conservatives.
Looking at their websites articles about the 2020 Elections provides little doubt as to its Democratic and anti-Conservative leanings.
With regards to articles on the subject of LGBTQ, Media Matters states that it monitors LGBTQ-related narratives with a focus “on dismantling conservative misinformation harmful to the LGBTQ community.” Just from the language they use – “conservative” – it is quite apparent that they will favor more “progressive” or left-leaning stances to defend the LGBTQ narratives and that is quite apparent if one scans their headlines for the many articles they have in this section.
Moreover, they state “Media Matters LGBTQ Program works with partner organizations across the country to share research, offer targeted media monitoring, and highlight LGBTQ issues and the bad actors affecting LGBTQ equality,” which undoubtedly means they push articles that are mostly in defense of the LGBTQ community.
While that is not necessarily a bad thing in that it can help defend the rights of the group, it becomes a much more contentious matter when they promote certain ideals of the LGBTQ agenda such as transgenderism and gender-related issues with regards to children and young teenagers.
A slippery and controversial example is that of the “grooming” and “gender affirming care” (which is eugenics code word for using psychological, pharmaceutical, and medical interventions on helpless and highly-impressionable children who are not able to fully comprehend their ramifications, yet alone their own personal identities).
How Media Matters appears to be on-board with these kind of egregious abuses lies in the deceptive manner in which they cover these issues; for example, their article titled Fox News is lying that New Jersey schools are “grooming” and torturing kids based on an LGBTQ-inclusive resource leaves little doubt on how they are hell-bent on attacking those who seek to protect innocent children.
In similar fashion, Media Matters coverage on Covid-19 most predominantly appears to be on the mainstream consensus side, often attacking experts on the subject such as Robert Kennedy Jr. from ChildrensHealthDefense.org and those from the conservative media with opposing narratives while protecting people like Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci who has been known to have lied on multiple occasions about funding gain-on-function research on coronaviruses and who reaped personal financial profits from his relationships with players in the industry.
Overall, the reach and influence that Media Matters has over mainstream news outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, and even the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s leading media outlet, is quite impressive. As such, the extent to which their narrations impact traditional mainstream news outlets ought to be seriously considered and further scrutinised.
Suffice it to say, that Media Matters for America appears to limit themselves as a being a mostly one-sided, left-leaning, echo chamber with a steadfast mission on countering opposing views that are considered conservative or right-of-center.
ProPublica & the Democracy Fund
The last two that will be covered that appeared in the infographic from Episode 5 – Never Give In – Never Give Up of Never Again is Now Global from earlier in this post, are ProPublica and the Democracy Fund.
ProPublica describes itself as follows:
“ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. We dig deep into important issues, shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust — and we stick with those issues as long as it takes to hold power to account.”
Though ProPublica enjoys one of the best reputations in the field of investigative journalism, the group’s story choices and rhetorical framing appears to indicate a left-leaning bias, notes InfluenceWatch. They add that as of 2018, ProPublica works with 184 “publishing partners,” from national publications to local news outlets, since its creation.
Furthermore, its inter-connected network of funders which include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (of Johnson & Johnson fame), the Sandler Foundation, and John Podesta’s Center for American Progress which are left-leaning outfits with pro-abortion stances.
They also receive funding from the Democracy Fund, George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society which is a firm proponent of abortion and LGBT rights as well as anti-Catholic Church stances.
Regarding ProPublica’s coverage of Covid-19 and its vaccines, is appears less “pro-narrative” (i.e., to mostly “follow the science” and that the vaccines are all “safe and effective”) than with the aforementioned outfits. But nonetheless, some of their articles on the matter have included their own fair share of disinformation.
Once more, a common problem with reporting on such complex health issues by reporters with very limited, if at all, experience in the related sciences of health and medicine and who come more from journalistic backgrounds, is that it can grossly and carelessly mislead their audiences.
Finally, with regards to the Democracy Fund, it is another left-leaning foundation that is chaired and principally funded by eBay founder and former chairman Pierre Omidyar. It has an extensive list of organisations it donates to, mostly through grants. These include the Poynter Institute for Media Studies (which oversees PolitiFact) to which it provided a $525,000 grant in 2017, and ProPublica.
Prior to funding the Democracy Fund, Omidyar public policy philanthropy had supported the likes of George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation, with the latter having historically been heavily involved in population control endeavours and more recently in LGBTQ causes.
Concluding
What these media and fact-checking organisations have in common, apart from the consistent blend of common funders with similarly aligned goals, is that they are all, without exception, left-leaning outfits that are more apt to support “left” and “progressive” agendas – particularly those espoused by the World Economic Forum – whilst criticizing right- or conservative-leaning stances on the issues they cover.
In addition, as has been referenced above, most of them have presented fact-checks and articles about Covid-19 that very seldom, if at all, offered views that were counter to the prevailing narratives regarding the pandemic measures and the so-called “safety and efficacy” of the vaccines.
Moreover, as former Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer and investigator Vincent Gircys noted, a mostly single-sided narrative coupled with the suppression of information (censorship) is a form of incriminating evidence in and of itself.
5.2 Supplement: The WHO & its own Network of Fact-Checkers
This section is an extension of the claim examined in section 5.1.
As the main claim examined in this work is about fact-checking outfits and who funds them, it is worthwhile to examine how the World Health Organization (WHO) uses them along with their own respective credentials, goals, and funders.
If one clicks on Poynter-affiliated HealthFeedback.org’s About link, it will redirect to its sister site ScienceFeedback.co’s own About page for which you will notice the following (emphasis added in red color):
The ‘member’ hyperlink points to an official WHO page:
The WHO’s Vaccine Safety Net (VSN) describes itself as follows:
“The Vaccine Safety Net is a global network of websites, established by the World Health Organization, that provides reliable information on vaccine safety.”
VSN boasts its impressive and wide-reaching network of 104 member sites in 44 countries around the world and states [original link included]:
“A key player in the Project is the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS), established by WHO in 1999, to respond promptly, efficiently, and with scientific rigour to vaccine safety issues of potential global importance. See GACVS webpage”
Though the GACVS leads to a dead end (and seems to have never existed), its main page can be accessed under the ‘VSN Members’ (which, by the way, includes three key organisations for Canada), specifically here: Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) which encourages viewers to visit the Vaccine Safety Net portal.
An overview of the WHO’s GACVS reads as follows [with emphasis added]:
“The Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) provides independent, authoritative, scientific advice to WHO on vaccine safety issues of global or regional concern with the potential to affect in the short or long term national immunization programmes. This includes providing advice on urgent matters as needed. Issues to be considered by the Committee are jointly decided by the WHO Secretariat and the Committee.”
The key terms to pay attention to here are ‘independent’, ‘vaccine safety issues’, and ‘national immunization programmes.”
Accordingly, it is important to verify the individuals who figure amongst its former and current membership.
Without going through each of the 12 individuals which comprise the current expert cohort, this author will focus on one in particular since she is from Canada, namely Ève Dubé – a professor at Laval University in the province of Quebec.
As will be evidenced hereunder, Mrs. Dubé is a staunch pro-vaccine advocate.
But, in order to get an objective, independent view regarding her background and stances on vaccines, this author reached out to Mr. Chrystian Leray, a spokesperson for Réinfo Covid Québec – an arm of an international collective of 4,000 doctors and 80,000 members – who stated the following about her [translated from French]:
“She is an anthropologist, she seems to have limited knowledge about vaccines, whether we are talking about “traditional” vaccines or mRNA. I've never seen her cite any scientific studies where she talks about mRNA. She therefore seems in the dogma that it is safe and effective, does not understand why people do not believe it and thinks it is because of the "conspirators".”
As for her personal stance on vaccines, looking at the tweets from her Twitter feed easily leads us to infer that she is quite pro-vaccine.
A re-tweet from Ève Dubé’s Twitter feed from April 5, 2022.
A January 28, 2022 tweet from Ève Dubé linked to an article from Agence Science Presse titled 5 mythes sur les personnes non vaccinées (English: 5 myths about the non-vaccinated). Archived here.
Amidst the 5 myths of the article in the “key points to retain” section, the author states “La désinformation et l’adhésion aux théories du complot viennent brouiller les cartes et élargissent le spectre des non vaccinés.” (English: “Misinformation and adherence to conspiracy theories are clouding the waters and widening the spectrum of the unvaccinated.”) They also link to three articles about vaccine hesitancy.
The article figures in the ‘Health & Medicine’ section of Agence Science Presse under its “Détecteur de rumeurs” (“rumor dector”) fact-checking rubric.
The outfit describes itself as an independent media agency with nearly 50 years of scientific and journalistic rigor, holding training workshops to fight against misinformation and false news, even drafting (writing) scientific articles.
However, some may question its independence, for they clearly state that their financing is “assured by the governments of Canada and Quebec.”
Othertweets from Ève Dubé’s Twitter feed also attests to her pro-vaccine leanings.
It should also be noted that since 2008 (archived here), Mrs. Dubé has worked for the INSPQ, also serving as Chair in Applied Public Health on the Anthropology of Vaccination Issues INSPQ-ULaval since January of 2022.
INSPQ is the center of expertise and reference in public health in the province to support Québec’s Minister of Health and Social Services.
A March 24, 2019 news post from the INSPQ titled Un vaccin contre la désinformation? Dre Ève Dubé à Tout le monde en parle confirmed Dubé’s presence on ‘Tout le monde en parle’, a popular TV show that airs on Radio-Canada, the French equivalent of the CBC. The titled of the post translates to “A vaccine against misinformation? Dr. Ève Dubé at Everybody's talking about it.”
Early on during the ramping up of the Covid-19 Pandemic, Mrs. Dubé was interviewed by a reporter from the Journal de Montréal in a piece called Crise de confiance de «Big Pharma» (English: “Big Pharma's crisis of confidence”) in which she sought to dispel the “lies and misinformation” about vaccination. As this was in April of 2020, no Covid-19 vaccine was yet available.
The article also mentioned that Mrs. Dubé had just received a $500,000 grant from the federal government to analyze the circulation of information concerning COVID-19 and the impact of fake news on public health efforts.
In a more recent news post dated October 21, 2022, titled Pourquoi certaines personnes hésitent-elles à se faire vacciner? (English: Why are some people reluctant to get vaccinated?), the INSQP Chair once more covers vaccine hesitancy while promoting them as safe and effective. In the article, she states the following [with some emphasis added]:
“« Il est essentiel de bien comprendre ces préoccupations et d’identifier les barrières rencontrées par les personnes qui n’ont pas reçu les vaccins recommandés afin de mettre au point des interventions adaptées aux enjeux des communautés ayant des taux de vaccination sous-optimaux. »
English: It is essential to fully understand these concerns and identify the barriers faced by people who have not received the recommended vaccines in order to develop interventions adapted to the challenges of communities with suboptimal vaccination rates.”
« La mission de la Chaire sera de générer des connaissances afin d’élaborer des stratégies qui encouragent la vaccination de façon équitable, durable et efficace.» (English: “The mission of the Chair will be to generate knowledge in order to develop strategies that encourage vaccination in an equitable, sustainable and effective manner,”) the article further emphasises.
And, the article confirms that the Chair, will receive $1.1 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for these purposes.
Dubé authored a series of papers for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) regarding vaccination hesitancy:
PHAC – Optimizing communication material to address vaccine hesitancy, February 6, 2020;
PHAC – Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) – Vaccine acceptance: How to build and maintain trust in immunization, May 7, 2020;
PHAC – Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) – Designing tailored interventions to address barriers to vaccination, March of 2021.
Also at the federal level, early in 2022, Mrs. Dubé was selected as an Applied Public Health Chair with the following Chair aim:
“Eve Dubé, Université Laval, Faculté des sciences sociales (Quebec)
Chair aim: Develop our understanding of vaccine hesitancy in the general population and health professionals, as well as develop and evaluate solutions to promote informed vaccination decisions.”
Another web page from the CIHR Institute of Population & Public Health (CIHR-IPPH) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) described her role as “Understanding and acting to address vaccine hesitancy.”
And at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) also highlighted the focus of her research which is largely concerned with vaccine uptake.
With all that has been exhibited above, it is quite clear what was to be expected by her by both the provincial and federal health authorities. In other words, her well-funded mandates were to specifically focus on vaccine hesitancy and related barriers, rather than examining vaccine safety and efficacy.
To date, and with at least $1.6 million in government funding, Mrs. Dubé only appears to have published two research papers:
COVID-19 vaccination attitudes and intention among Quebecers during the first and second waves of the pandemic: findings from repeated cross-sectional surveys, published July 28, 2021;
Stigma and blame related to COVID-19 pandemic: A case-study of editorial cartoons in Canada, published in March, 2022.
Her first paper’s Abstract states “the success of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign relies on high uptake by the public.”
She and her co-authors added “It was reassuring to note that intention to be vaccinated is the highest among older age groups that are prioritized to be vaccinated first…As more doses and vaccines will be available it will be important to enhance vaccine acceptance and uptake,” for which the bolded phrases indicate clear, not impartial, bias by its authors, for the study was supposed to examine the “attitudes and intentions” of Quebecers towards vaccination.
Apart from numerous grammar and punctuation mistakes, the paper’s Conclusion clearly demonstrates the loaded goal, or intent, of the study:
“Our findings could however to develop tailored interventions to enhance vaccine acceptance targeted to groups that are less willing to be vaccinated (i.e., younger adults, those feeling less at risk, those with lower level of education and those living in more deprived areas). The launch of COVID-19 vaccination provides an important opportunity to address vaccine hesitancy in Canada. Beyond providing information about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, successful strategies will need to be culturally sensitive, tailored and multicomponent (i.e., increase access to vaccination services, address vaccine hesitancy, build support among community leaders and engage healthcare providers).”
This author contacted Mrs. Dubé by email for comment, but no response has been forthcoming.
The broader question the reader should ponder here, however, is why was Mrs. Dubé specifically selected to be on the WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) panel?
If they were really concerned with vaccine safety as they state on their web page, then why would they specifically choose a “health expert” who was no expertise on vaccine safety, but was rather known as a vaccine-hesitancy specialist prior to her appointment?
It would be interesting to see what backgrounds the other 11 members of the WHO’s Vaccine Safety Net. But, as this post is already running quite long, the reader is invited to examine the matter further, and even add related findings in the comments section of this post.
Fact-checker HealthFeedback.org & the CBC’s “expert” Tim Caulfield
As mentioned earlier, Healthfeedback.org figures among Poynter’s network of fact-checkers which also includes a sister site called ScienceFeedback.co which share the same About page. On that page, it is indicated that Health Feedback is a member of the WHO’s Vaccine Safety Net which was also described earlier.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, most often referred to as the CBC is Canada’s prominent news broadcaster. As with any major broadcasting outlet, it hires and connects with experts from various fields to obtain and sometimes help validate data, facts, and information for its news reporting.
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, the CBC often used and uses two experts in Maya Goldenberg, a vaccine hesitancy expert from the University of Guelph and Tim Caulfield who is a professor at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law and a long time vaccine advocate.
In his testimony at the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI), former long-time journalist Rodney Palmer who worked at the CBC criticised his former employer for using Caulfield as a regular expert on matters related to Covid-19.
Part of that criticism, Palmer pointed out at the inquiry, was due to the fact that Tim Caulfield was receiving a $381,000 grant to combat Covid-19 misinformation even though Palmer contended that a lot of the Covid-19-related news the CBC was reporting, itself, contained a lot of misinformation and that the broadcaster was pushing propaganda throughout the pandemic.
The following image is from a slide of Palmer’s presentation at the NCI.
Palmer’s slide also indicates an additional $1.75 million in federal funding that was earmarked for a campaign for countering vaccine misinformation.
A quick look at Timothy Caulfield’s Twitter feed also leaves little doubt as to this personal stance on vaccines.
Caulfield has at least two tweets whereby he uses HealthFeedback.org’s reporting to help justify his personal views on complex medical issues such as vaccination for which he has no formal medical or scientific training in the field of vaccines other than a Bachelor of Science.
Timothy Caulfield’s tweet from February 18, 2023.
So, for him to be a key consultant to the CBC on matters related to the safety of vaccines is perhaps not optimal. For, as a pro-vaccine advocate – like Mrs. Ève Dubé and Maya Goldenbert (from the slide image above) – he is presenting and indirectly conveying to viewers of the CBC that vaccines are safe, ignoring the possible downsides to the medical procedure.
As retired Ontario Provincial Police Vincent Gircys previously noted, the CBC and mainstream media at large have been presenting single-sided narratives throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic. “Authoritarianism, intense propaganda by the state media, along with intense censorship are contributing factors which have led to the current state of affairs in Canada,” Gircys stated in this author’s recent one-on-one interview with the seasoned investigator.
This author sought comment from Mr. Caulfield via one of his Twitter posts, but did not receive a reply.
Summary & Conclusion (for Part 5)
Though this fifth part of the review series only examined one claim from the fifth episode of the docuseries Never Again is Now Global, it was an important one since it focused on fact-checking outfits that are extremely instrumental in how news about the Covid-19 has been constructed and disseminated.
The main contention of the claim was challenging the parties that are funding these fact-checking outfits. And, indirectly, what influence and sway they hold on the outfits whom they generously fund.
This 30+ page post has examined these relationships in detail. And for the most part, this claim has proven to be quite validated.
A deep dive into checking the fact-checkers has led this author down many other avenues whereby it has been found how even a very small group of so-called of experts in the field of public health have been utilised (or weaponised?) to help members of the corporate media propagate a consistent narrative about the assured safety of the Covid-19 vaccines, the dangers of so-called disinformation surrounding possible wrongdoings from key actors during the pandemic, and the unforgivable sin that is vaccine hesitancy.
This same handful of highly-biased individuals have also been extremely influential in guiding public policy makers from public health agencies on how to “better” handle these health matters and deal with individuals who are skeptical and reluctant to get the jab.
In addition, this post examined the WHO’s own role in the matter of fact-checking information and facts about the issues surrounding Covid-19.
Of course, it goes without saying that such a position is indeed essential for global public health.
But sadly, it also has been evidenced that though the WHO projects an apparent genuine concern for the safety of vaccines, they certainly appear to have chosen individuals who are from pro-vaccine backgrounds like Mrs. Ève Dubé to sit on their Global Vaccine Safety’s expert cohort.
If they were genuinely concerned with vaccine safety, wouldn’t they prefer to fill their 12-member team with those who could more objectively assess the safety and efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccines?
An expert in the field such as Dr. Tess Lawrie from the World Council for Health, recently contended that the WHO wants to introduce 500 new vaccines by 2030 in their Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) program (archived here), as can be confirmed from the WHO’s website [emphasis added in red]:
What does this tell us about the World Health Organization for health challenges, future pandemics, and vaccination programs going forward?
Stay tuned for the Conclusion post for this series. The author intends to assemble all parts into a single PDF file which will be made available in the Conclusion or in a subsequent post.
“Truth is truth, even if no one believes it.
A lie is a lie, even if everyone believes it.”
Note: Special thanks to Dave Ratcliffe for referring to the Never Again Is Now Global series and this review series on his website radical earth journal.
In Peace and Liberty,
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Disclaimer:
None of the contents of this article is to be taken as medical or health-related advice. Seek independent professional consultation before making health-related decisions. See the author’s About page for full disclaimer.
Excellent analysis. Thanks.
Please forgive my non-stop nitpicking Dan, but I found another one that I'm sure you didn't mean: "[...] leaves little doubt on how they are hell-bent on attacking those who oppose protecting innocent children". Oppose, yes. Protect children, yes. Oppose protecting children, I don't think so :)