In the 15 years of Act Party members dominating presence in New Zealand politics, the media have inexcusably failed to mention the Act Party's connection to the US Conservative Institutes. Yet there has been no attempt of hide it. 'Prebbles Rebels' homepage gives the Cato Institute as their only international link . The Act Party's homepage single international link is to the US Conservative Foundations.
The Cato institute & other US conservative thinktanks are being funded by the biggest corporations in the US, and no newspaper thinks to mention the Act Party connection or that their policies are from, and being directed by these US conservative thinktanks!!??
"Funny funding"
Major media outlets have routinely turned a blind eye to the corporate financial backing for Cato and other large think tanks in Washington. Few reporters or pundits focus on the conflicts of interest involved.
While serving on Cato's board and making personal donations, TCI's John Malone is among many other media and telecommunications heaviest behind Cato.TCI is the biggest cable-operator in the U.S Other big donors include Bell Atlantic Network Services, Bell South Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation, GTE Bell south Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Netscape Communications Corporation, NYNEX Corporation, Sun Microsystems and Viacom International. It's understandable that Cato's news releases—while constantly urging privatization of the Internet and other communications systems—do not mention where Cato money is coming from. But it's inexcusable that media coverage seldom includes such information.
Financial firms kicking in big checks to Cato include American Express, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, Citicorp/Citibank, Common-wealth Fund, Prudential Securities and Salomon Brothers.
Energy conglomerates include: Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation and Atlantic Richfield Foundation. Cato's pharmaceutical donors include Eli Lilly & Company, Merck & Company and Pfizer, Inc
A report by Public Citizen illuminated the industry money behind the major think tanks campaigning to strip regulatory authority from the Food and Drug Administration: "Seven think tanks—the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the Washington Legal Foundation—received at least $3.5 million between 1992 and 1995 from drug, medical device, biotechnology and tobacco manufacturers and their corporate foundations." But mainstream journalists paid scant attention to who was paying the piper. "Some of the country's most renowned think tanks, frequently cited by the American media, are carrying water for the drug, medical device, biotechnology and tobacco industries," the public interest group reported (Public Citizen, Fall/97).
Not all media outlets have given short shrift to those realities. Under the headline "FDA's Detractors Get Funny Funding," the Tennessean newspaper editorialized (7/29/97): "The think tanks named in the report, including the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, have produced a steady stream of anti-FDA sentiment, including op-ed pieces and reports over the last several years." The newspaper noted "a tremendous difference between an independent think tank, which does legitimate research, and a quasi-academic mouthpiece financed by a regulated industry."
Clearly, the Cato Institute falls in the latter category. The Institute's yearly funding has climbed above $8 million, more than twice what it was in 1992. The organization's most recent annual report exults: "We've moved into a beautiful new $13.7 million headquarters at 1000 Massachusetts Avenue and have only $1 million in debt remaining on it as we enter 1997." Dozens of huge corporations, eager to roll back government regulatory powers, are among Cato's largest donors.
In their book No Mercy, University of Colorado Law School scholars Stefancic and Delgado describe a shift in Cato's patron base over the years. Cato's main philanthropic backing has come from the right-wing Koch, Lambe and Sarah Scaife foundations. But today, Cato "receives most of its financial support from entrepreneurs, securities and commodities traders, and corporations such as oil and gas companies, Federal Express, and Philip Morris that abhor government regulation."
Even when Malone makes a public appearance for the Cato Institute, reporters seem uninclined to shed light on the array of corporate funding that makes Cato possible. When Malone spoke on "Telecommunications in the 21st Century" at a Cato seminar luncheon in Denver, a pair of articles in the next day's Denver Post (11/15/96) gave extensive coverage to Malone's comments—and identified Cato only as "a libertarian think tank."
Cato's newest board member, Rupert Murdoch, is a global media giant whose U.S. possessions include the Fox television network, TV Guide, the tabloid New York Post, HarperCollins book publishers and the Twentieth Century Fox movie studios. Along the way, lax federal regulation has swelled the profits of Murdoch's News Corp., now a $28 billion conglomerate. As a 1997 New York Times article noted (3/31/97), his 10-year-old Fox TV network "could never have succeeded if it had not received generous treatment at the Federal Communications Commission."
Naturally, turning such big governmental wheels requires lots of political grease. In 1996, Rupert Murdoch donated $1 million to the California Republican Party, while News Corp. gave another $654,700 in "soft money" to the national GOP. In Murdoch's native Australia, News Corp. dominates the mass media. In Britain, Murdoch controls more than a third of daily newspaper circulation along with much of cable and satellite television. While using his media outlets to push for the slashing of government social services, Murdoch was a pioneer in union-busting within the newspaper industry.
Murdoch is likely to have a long and harmonious presence on the Cato Institute's board of directors.
Research assistance: Peter Hart
Think Tank Monitor is a joint project of FAIR and the Institute for Public Accuracy, based in San Francisco and Washington, D.C