Does Gates funding of media taint objectivity?

A good article (2011) on influence on media through billionaire donations. Some interesting excerpts are below but it's worth reading the whole article.

To garner attention for the issues it cares about, the foundation has  invested millions in training programs for journalists. It funds  research on the most effective ways to craft media messages.  Gates-backed think tanks turn out media fact sheets and newspaper  opinion pieces. Magazines and scientific journals get Gates money to  publish research and articles. Experts coached in Gates-funded programs  write columns that appear in media outlets from The New York Times to  The Huffington Post, while digital portals blur the line between  journalism and spin.

The efforts are part of what the foundation calls “advocacy and  policy.” Over the past decade, Gates has devoted $1 billion to these  programs, which now account for about a tenth of the giant  philanthropy’s $3 billion-a-year spending. The Gates Foundation spends  more on policy and advocacy than most big foundations — including  Rockefeller and MacArthur — spend in total.

Some of the foundation’s approaches are controversial, such as its  embrace of genetically modified crops and emphasis on technological  fixes for health problems. Critics fear foundation funding of media will  muffle those debates. And with only three trustees setting the overall  strategy — Bill and Melinda Gates and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett —  there’s something “deeply anti-democratic” about such a concentration  of influence, Miller said.

“It would be naive to believe big-money foundations don’t play the same  game that corporations and other special interests do,” said Marc  Cooper, assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s  Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

The foundation’s direct funding for media and media programs, which  so far totals nearly $50 million, initially followed the path taken by  other foundations and corporations: Money for journalist training and  for nonprofits such as NPR and PBS. But rather than providing general  support, Gates usually stipulates reporting on the issues it cares about  most: diseases such as HIV, malaria and TB; poverty in the developing  world; and education in the United States.

Indeed, few of the news organizations that get Gates money have  produced any critical coverage of foundation programs. The Guardian is  an exception, with a recent blog post that blasted the foundation’s  associations with agricultural giant Monsanto, a leader in genetically  modified crops.

“I don’t know if the Gates Foundation’s projects work,” Cooper said.  “And if the Gates Foundation is going to pay for all the news coverage  around this, we’re never going to know.”

The foundation’s latest media push, launched by Melinda Gates in  2010, is to shift coverage from stories of despair to stories that show  problems can be solved.

Beyond direct links to media, the foundation also supports a dizzying  mix of organizations whose goals include influencing media coverage. An  interested citizen might think she’s getting news and information from a  variety of sources, but many of them might be funded by Gates.

Gates isn’t the sole funder for most of the groups, nor does Gates money  mean grantees march to the same beat. But with virtually every major  player in global health — and many in education — receiving Gates money,  it’s clear the foundation’s voice is highly amplified in the media and  beyond.

“It’s an echo chamber,” Cooper said.