Campbell Brown, the pretty, telegenic journalist who was once a talking head for CNN, has launched her website and news service to report and opine on education issues with a strong point of view. It is called The 74 Million, referring to the 74 million children below the age of 18. You can expect to read and hear about the glories of charter schools, vouchers, privatization, and Teach for America. You should not expect to see any good news about public education, unions, or veteran teachers.
Its funders include Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, Daniel S. Loeb, Jon Sackler, and the Walton Foundation. All of these are well-known supporters of vouchers and charters. Loeb, a billionaire hedge-funder, is the chair of the Board of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academies; Sackler started a charter chain; the Walton Foundation pours about $150 million a year into vouchers and charters and Teach for America; Betsy DeVos founded American Federation for Children, which zealously advocates for vouchers; Jonathan Sackler, a wealthy equity investor, is a leader in the Connecticut and national charter school movement.
Two of our best bloggers have reacted to The 74 Million.
Jennifer Berkshire, aka EduShyster, got a tip about a journalist who applied for a job with The 74. She was told that the 74 news service needed investigative journalists but they would not cover subject of charter school scandals. She shared her story with EduShyster but insisted on anonymity as revealing her name would be “career suicide.” EduShyster repeatedly reached out to a high-level official at The 74. Eventually he responded and insisted that he could not comment based on a report from an anonymous source. And of course, the site will be “fair and balanced.” Where have we heard that before?
Peter Greene also received the news blast about the arrival of the Campbell Brown news service. Greene is impressed by the professional look of the site and the journalists hired to write for it. Its budget is $4 million but he says it is far slicker than Peter Cunningham’s Ed Post, which was funded by same of the same sources with $12 million.
He observes:
This is an advocacy site, and “advocacy” is our nice name for PR. It has a point of view that it wants to push, and whether that’s because Brown is a clueless rich dilettante who doesn’t know what she’s talking about or an evil mastermind who’s fronting for her husband and his disaster capitalist friends, either way, this is a site that has a point of view to push. This is no more nor less than we expected. That’s evident just in the choice of topics. One good way to be subtle in slanting news is to provide fairly level coverage– but only of the things you want to talk about….
We’ll see how things play out. If Brown can convince candidates to cue up for her educational summits, she may start looking like a real player in the ed debates, or at least a good mouthpiece for candidates who want to say educationy things without being challenged on their baloney.
But if you had the slightest thought that there would be any surprises at The 74, banish such foolish notions. It’s a slicker package and better buns, but it’s the same old pro-charter, anti-union, pro-privatization, anti-public ed meal inside. I can’t wait till they start covering Brown’s heroic fight to destroy tenure in New York, but I definitely won’t hold my breath waiting for a hard-hitting expose of a charter school scandal.
There is no such thing as advocacy journalism. You cannot, as Brown promises we will, have both. Either you have a journalist’s interest in pursuing the truth, wherever the path leads you, or you have an advocate’s interest in finding support for the position that you have already committed yourself to. It’s one or the other, and for all the journalistic trappings, Brown has chosen the path of the advocate.
The Times reported (or quoted the news release) that they will hold presidential forums: http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/12/advocacy-group-for-charter-schools-to-hold-presidential-forums/
Just another presstitute with a heart of gold …
More like another presstitute seeking a pocket full of gold.
presstitute. That is awesome. had not heard that before.
From urbandictionary.com:
presstitute
A term coined by Gerald Celente and often used by independent journalists and writers in the alternative media in reference to journalists and talking heads in the mainstream media who give biased and predetermined views in favor of the government and corporations, thus neglecting their fundamental duty of reporting news impartially. It is a portmanteau of press and prostitute.
“Let me tell you something Alex, as soon as the economy collapses the presstitutes will be clamoring for war to distract the American people from the domestic problems.”
Presstitute. Outstanding.
Mika gave 74 a huge plug on Morning Joe today. I wrote on Mika’s facebook that she should delve into the supporters of this project before accepting its “benefits” to education reform.
Mika? Is that a cat? I don’t watch hardly any TV so I don’t have any idea who this Mika cat is.
Reviewing Brown’s supporters, staff, and donors is like reading a list of the Far Right Rheeformers younger generation of wanna be billionaires. A few are already.
Jonathan Alter…whose sister is LAUSD’s own Jamie Alter Lynton (whose husband runs Sony) and all are charter/privatizer trolls.
Loeb, hedge fund billionaire who stands to make trillions with his Wall Streeters, from dismantling public schools, and who already has major Wall Street investments in privatizing, and is (like Tilson and others) teaching his clients how to invest in education for vast profit (on the backs of the taxpayers).
Salam who writes for National Review.
Drucker who worked for Bloomberg and Klein.
Marchese who works for Fox and Rupert Murdoch.
Perelman who got privatizer Dem, Cory Booker elected.
Karsh who appointed privatizer Austin Beutner to be CEO of the LA Times while he took over the Chicago Trib organization.
Wolfson who worked for Bloomberg and is known at the “ARCHITECT of HILLARY CLINTON’S WINNING CAMPAIGN OF 2000.”
Hoover who is a Bush Repub and member of the Hoover Institute.
Read it all and weep. These folks are the most well educated from the best Ivy League schools and they are generally young…in the 35 – 45 year old demographic. And they are in league to do away with public education.
And don’t forget Brown’s bed mate, Dan Senor…who deserves a google search to see his long career as a master manipulator for the Right.
Here’s a story about Campbell’s friend & all around charmer Dan Loeb. He’s soliciting teacher retirement money for his investors to play with while simultaneously lobbying to end teacher benefits.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/dan-loeb-simultaneously-solicits-betrays-pension-funds-20130411
These guys didn’t get to be billionaires by being nice. They want to crush us under their heels.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-public-pensions-a-new-think-tank-study-20130926
Great links..hope everyone reads them carefully. Matt Taibbi and David Sirota are the two best investigative journalists in America.
Correction..Jamie Alter Lynton is publisher of LASR, Los Angeles School Report, an independent reporter and is not part of LAUSD but reports on issues of the district.
Maybe someone can help me find anything in her background that would suggest an understanding, let alone expertise, with the issues facing education today.
Don’t waste your time.
Deformers know about education because they all went to school. They know how to make money: privatize education.
Campbell the Clown was a self-admitted “ski bum” in Colorado after she graduated college. This must have given her some insight into what it’s like to stand on a corner bumming lift tickets.
under a red light????
What are the criteria for “career ready for bumming ski lift tickets”?
In thought the term was “ski bunny”? Maybe that is just used in the towering mountains in Ohio.
Sorry GE2L2R, but your asking for the impossible. Can’t be done.
There’s a write in Fortune:
http://fortune.com/2015/07/13/why-this-controversial-former-cnn-host-is-launching-an-education-news-site/
And they quote a response from Diane.
The obsession with labor unions in ed reform is weird. It’s as if all public school parents are just silently fuming that teachers belong to labor unions. I’ve had lots and lots of conversations with parents about school and I don’t think I’ve heard unions mentioned once.
“the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation”
Since when is the DeVos Foundation nonpartisan? That’s ridiculous.
Betsy DeVos (Amway). Sister of Eric Prince, founder of Blackwater, made rich with government contracts.
The DeVos’ state of Michigan, the 7th largest Pearson shareholder,
This is very grass-roots and parent-driven, I must say:
“Editor-in-chief Campbell Brown sits down with Frank Bruni, Jonathan Capehart and John Dickerson to discuss America’s education policies, and how they might shape the next presidential election”
4 media stars discuss what to do with America’s public school children. These self-appointed “thought leaders” will be dominating the whole debate.
Great.
C’mon Chiara…why are you surprised that this new venture by Brown is totally partisan. Read my notes above about who is running this show and even the lazy world of non-careful readers (you are not one of these) can see that this is the most partisan group one can find…but the wonderment is that these are such well educated people who seem to put making more wealth available to their ilk, than they are about really improving education to create diversity and equality. Profit trumps conscience.
Why does Fortune, and Forbes, only give her claque prominence, but they do not make an effort to maintain reportorial balance by talking with the rest of us?
Because they don’t to have their bubbles burst as to just how ignorant they really are.
Most teachers have everyday experience with dealing with students who think they know a lot more than they actually do. We could set them and their thinking straight and more reality based than what it currently is.
they don’t WANT to have. .. . ay ay ay.
Yup…Duane. But the question got you sputtering…a rare and fun occasion.
Damn, Ellen, I’m not perfect, there goes my dream of being an edudeformer-ha ha!
Did anyone notice Naomi Nix writing for this website. She is the “education reporter” for the New Jersey Star Ledger who is queen of minimizing the travesty going on Newark. This is no surprise really, but it says a lot about the Star Ledger’s journalistic downward spiral.
Oh, so it’s the national version of laschoolreport.com which pretends to be the insider scoop on California’s largest school district. There was even an article in the Jewish Journal about the publisher being an LAUSD watchdog as if she was doing it for the good of mankind rather than for the corporate privatizers. Ugh.
For a bunch of reactionary greed meisters, Karen, they certainly seem naive if they think none of their internecine plotting will not see the light of day (as with Jamie’s emails with her hubby at Sony re charter cash cows). We have many assiduous researchers/muckrakers who seem to bring it all out….educators version of Wilileaks it would seem.
I don’t understand why Campbell Brown and her ilk continue to think that a sucker is born every minute. Just WHOSE eyes do they think they are going to pull the wool over? At this point, its like they are preaching to themselves. No one else, except those with money to make, give a rat’s rear what Campbell and her thieving friends are selling. “News” media can continue to showcase the farce that is Campbell’s circus and agenda, but no one is buying. We all know its snake oil, smoke and mirrors, empty rhetoric and fake “facts”, spin and lies. Americans aren’t buying anymore–so where does that leave these fools? All that money, wasted on such nonsense. Too bad they are greedy and evil at heart. I don’t know how they sleep at night.
I just wish she’d open the site up for comments. I might have some serious fun with that. But I ain’t holdin my breath.
In the U.S., reportedly, PR people outnumber journalists 4 to 1. But, the number is probably a lot higher with some PR people picking up paychecks from media, as if they were journalists. The evidence is in states where Fordham is the only source quoted in education articles and, the listing of Fordham’s funders is verboten.