Bill Gates apparently donated $13 million to the Atlantic and the Guardian… in turn, they are churning out articles like this…
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 20, 2022
“the most damaging farm products? Organic pasture-fed beef and lamb”…
Paid for activist "journalism". pic.twitter.com/Fwxp1RsIta
Never one to miss out on a retweet, the attention-seeking slaphead James Melville joined in...
Meanwhile, The Guardian has received $12,951,391 in support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. pic.twitter.com/AHwvd5GlFL
— James Melville (@JamesMelville) August 21, 2022
Everything about this conspiracy theory is false. But never mind, let's give it 11,000 likes.
— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) August 21, 2022
1. The Guardian asked me to cover a different topic, but I asked to write about this one, as I thought it was more important. In other words, the initiative was entirely mine.🧵 https://t.co/qTt5MbRUA9
6. Like other Guardian journalists, I have been highly critical of Bill Gates, in the Guardian and elsewhere. I see him as a politics denier, purveyor of false solutions and extreme environmental hypocrite. Did he also pay for these opinions? How deep does this conspiracy go???
— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) August 21, 2022
8. Please don’t fall for these fables. We're facing real and massive predicaments - the greatest existential crises humanity has ever confronted – and we need to focus relentlessly on what they are and how we avert them. Don’t let the conspiracy theorists mislead you.
— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) August 21, 2022
Don't fall for these fables, says the man who describes a think tank that has published the work of twelve Nobel-prize winning economists as "a hoax" and who once gathered a mob to 55 Tufton Street - an address that has become infamous with geographically challenged conspiracy theories - who then vandalised the building.
Monbiot has since argued on Twitter than the Guardian does at least publish the names of its donors, unlike those ghastly free market think tanks, but this isn't true. In the last few years, it has started panhandling for contributions from its readers. You can become a Patron, with packages ranging from £1,200 to £5,000, and you are welcome to give more if you feel like it. Thanks to these donations, the Guardian was able to turn a profit for the first time in 20 years.
The names of these Patrons are kept secret. Rightly so, I would argue. It's no one else's business if I want to give money to a struggling newspaper, just as it is no one else's business if you want to give to a charity like the IEA.
It seems reasonable to assume that the people who become Guardian patrons do so because they broadly support the Guardian's worldview. The reverse explanation - that the Guardian changes its editorial line to match the views of its patrons - is fairly obviously absurd, and yet that is how Monbiot thinks it works in think tanks (not all think tanks, just the ones he doesn't like).
Nevertheless, the hilarious fact remains that Monbiot works for an organisation that is funded by anonymous donors and billionaires. He now finds himself the target of lunatic conspiracy theorists shouting "follow the money" and refusing to believe that anybody in his position can have an opinion of their own.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave!
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