After my column on Wisconsin Reporter and Wisconsin Watch was posted Tuesday, I received some more information that should be added.
First, one of my references to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism erroneously substituted “Reporting” for the last word in the Wisconsin Center’s title. My apologies to executive director Andy Hall, who notes that it’s such a common mistake he sometimes thinks he should have incorporated “reporting” in the name.
Second, after my story went up, I heard back from the president of Wisconsin Reporter’s parent organization, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, regarding some questions I had.
Jason Stverak responded to my question about blogger Chris Liebenthal’s linkage of the Franklin Center to a Scott Walker donor, through the Center’s ownership of the web domain IowaPolitics.com, by suggesting the connection was in essence out of date.
Liebenthal, Stverak says, “is stretching to find connections that aren’t there. Regarding your specific question, we purchased the website and domain name from WisPolitics Publishing LLC in 2011. We stand by our coverage and the integrity of our news organizations.”
Steverak also provided a link to this press release announcing the transaction. In short, he appears to suggest that the connections Liebenthal drew reflected ownership of the domain before the transaction. That may be so, but the information on record (via the WhoIs look-up) still reflects what Liebenthal reported. I’ve asked Liebenthal for his reaction and will post that in the comments here when he gets back to me.
On the subject of where the the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity gets its funds, I overlooked the excellent report in August from the Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice, who dug up some answers to that question and found that
The Franklin Center has received money from leading conservative groups – including, again, the Bradley Foundation, which donated $190,500 last year. In its first year, the Franklin Center had a $2.9 million budget, much of it from the libertarian Sam Adams Alliance.
Of course, there’s still a huge problem in the fact that anyone had to do the kind of shoe-leather work Bice did to get those answers, when the Franklin Center ought to disclose its funding outright.
On that point, Stverak in his email late Tuesday answered my question about the group’s funding sources this way:
“The Franklin Center honors and respects the wishes of its numerous supporters and donors and that is why we adhere to a policy of keeping our donors [sic] identity [sic] confidential. If I may illustrate by quoting John Podesta’s Center for American Progress: ‘Some donors choose to make public what they are giving us, but others don’t, and we respect that.’ Donors have many reasons for requesting anonymity including concerns about retribution from activists and even the government. Our policy is no different from that taken by non-profit organizations.”
To which I can respond only, Really? Seriously?
The underlying issue here is whether the avowedly “non-partisan” Franklin Center and its journalistic progeny have a hidden ideological agenda that may align with either philosophical or business interests of its donors – and whether that leads it to shade its stories accordingly. Are we really supposed to be comforted in that concern by comparing it with the Center for American Progress?
CAP isn’t holding itself out as an independent news organization – it’s an ideologically driven think tank that exists to rally folks on the left, for crying out loud. If it places articles in the press, it’s on the op-ed page, or through one of its spokespeople expressing a point of view – not offering bylined stories to run in the news columns.
Which is exactly the same way critics of WR say that organization’s output should be treated.
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