{"id":673,"date":"2016-05-26T09:52:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T15:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?p=673"},"modified":"2016-05-26T09:54:13","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T15:54:13","slug":"you-wont-believe-how-much-money-the-feds-keep-giving-to-just-one-media-outlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/05\/you-wont-believe-how-much-money-the-feds-keep-giving-to-just-one-media-outlet\/","title":{"rendered":"You won&#8217;t believe how much money the feds keep giving to just one media outlet"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/83566799\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 53.367003% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/83566799?et=k3hSINQHRPZHdoCfj2u4rw&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=SBITvFybhfT9yRDL34VrIdlzhHpEXnXaz9kiJoQQRmQ=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"317\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>How much the federal government is spending on one media outlet is troubling, to say the least.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/feds-paid-politico-710k-in-2015\/article\/2002529\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Weekly Standard<\/a>, the Virginia-based media organization known as Politico received $710,044 in contracts last year from the federal government. That may not seem like much in the big picture of the trillions of dollars the feds spend yearly, but it is when you realize they keep giving them more and more each year for their news services.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011, Politico launched its subscription-based service, Politico Pro. That year, the government joined for $41,900. Three years later, the feds upped the contracts to 28 and spent $431,800. Last year, 50 individual licenses were purchased through Politico Pro, bringing the total to a whopping $710,044 \u2014 \u201ca 64% increase over 2014,\u201d the report adds.<\/p>\n<p>The news organization states on its Pro <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politicopro.com\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">website<\/a> that it \u201cprovides the most distinct coverage of Washington and beyond, and thousands of politics and policy professionals depend on us each day to do their jobs.\u201d A team of over 100 journalists are said to cover \u201cgame-changing developments\u201d in agriculture, defense, education, energy, health care, trade, tax, and more.<\/p>\n<p>But according to the vice president of communications for Politico, Brad Dayspring, there\u2019s no possible way having this large number of contracts could lead to a conflict of interest:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cOur editorial staff pursues news stories completely independent of the sales process \u2014 there is no interaction between the business team executing sales of the Pro service and the editorial teams gathering the news.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Dayspring said he is \u201cproud\u201d to get \u201cmore federal agencies\u201d on board each year and assured that its business only accounts for \u201ca small fraction\u201d of Pro subscriptions.<\/p>\n<p>What is interesting, however, is comparing the federal contracts with other media outlets. In the same years between 2011 and today, <em>The Washington Post<\/em>\u2018s subscriptions have dwindled so low, it owes the feds $3,523. Subscriptions for <em>The New York Times<\/em> never toppled $100,000 and have been at zero for the last three years.<\/p>\n<p>Like the Weekly Standard states, \u201cthe growing federal appetite for Politico\u2019s services\u201d is quite evident and it\u2019s going to take a lot more than a company statement to convince me there\u2019s no conflict of interest here.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The feds give over $700k to one media outlet and we&#8217;re not supposed to believe that&#8217;s a conflict of interest?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2673,"featured_media":680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - 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After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. Founded in February 2012, this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. 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