Conflict of interest? How could it not be?
Billionaire Eli Broad is underwriting education coverage at the Los Angeles Times.
Eli Broad wants 50% of the students in the Los Angeles Unified School District to be enrolled charter schools. He intends to pool $490 million to create 260 new charters.
The LA Times wrote an editorial endorsing Broad’s plan to privatize a huge part of public education.
One man wants his way. Eli Broad does not believe in democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Welcome to Los Angeles!! Corruption abounds but everyone has their eyes turned toward the sun. It’s the kingdom of denial.
So glad the Washington Post finally picked up on this. I have been writing about here since the inception of this situation some months ago.
I couldn’t believe the quiet acceptance of this. To me it seemed a total abrogation of responsible journalism. Its like they aren’t even pretending to be a real newspaper anymore.
Recently an editor at the NY Times wrote that billionaires, by the very fact of being ultra-wealthy, can never have a conflict of interest. This was in the context of the tech industry, but I wonder if the LA Times feels the same way–Broad is rich, his machinations are branded as philanthropy, so there is no need to question his methods or motives.
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/conflict-of-interest-in-t-magazines-tech-article/
Billionaires do ha conflicts of interest. Sometimes because of greed, or lust for power and control, or sheer egotism. Imagine if a billionaire paid people to vote for him or his candidate. Is that not a conflict?
That is not my take on what the editor said, which was that the billionaire who wrote the piece should be considered as an individual apart from her billionaire husband.
Of course billionaires have conflicts of interest. But in this era of “disruptive innovation”, you’d think they were all doing it for the public good.
I mean that I disagreed with what Another Former Teacher wrote–that the editor said by the very fact of being ultra-wealthy, billionaires can never have a conflict of interest. That’s not how I read it.
Here’s the quote: “she is, separately from her husband, a billionaire (making her through marriage a billionaire twice over) and for that reason I think I failed to consider any monetary conflict in her case. “
You might be right but I interpreted the full explanation to be that the editor was making a distinction between the wife’s interests and her husband’s. Still, I’m pretty sure by most ethical standards (journalism, government oversight, etc) a spouse’s financial interests would enter the equation. The editor said, “it was my mistake in not asking her if there were any potential conflicts. This was an oversight on my part. I say this not as an excuse, but she is, separately from her husband, a billionaire (making her through marriage a billionaire twice over) and for that reason I think I failed to consider any monetary conflict in her case. Had I done that, I would have thought twice about the Airbnb mention, but as I believe in her expertise and opinion, might still have wanted to run it, but absolutely would have included a disclosure.”
Why doesn’t he just buy the newspaper, then he could write what he liked in it.
Broad has been trying to buy the LA Times for the last few years, first by bifurcating it from the Trib a few years ago, with Beutner as his partner….and now again bifurcating it from the Trib and buying it himself. Since this the main daily paper for not only So. California, but is widely read elsewhere, it would be one more horror of billionaire takeover of the media should Eli be able to buy it.
So Howard, a terrible suggestion.
THANK YOU, Washington Post and Diane Ravitch! As Ellen Lubic mentioned, many of us in Los Angeles have been trying to call “foul!” about this to no avail. The megaphones of us regular folks are not as powerful as the megaphones of billionaires.
I could go on and on about the ethical problems with Eli Broad and his charter supporters funding the education section of the LA Times. I would start with the pathetic story of a “regular teacher” meeting President Obama and all she worried about was what to wear. She was actually paid by the pro-reform astro-turf group, TeachPlus. http://www.latimes.com/local/education/lausd/la-me-edu-what-a-los-angeles-schoolteacher-told-obama-20151026-story.html But people on this blog understand better than anyone the problems with Eli Broad paying for education “news”.
The other issue is that there is actually a grassroots movement to wrestle control of the LA Times from the Chicago-based Tribune Company back into local hands. Those advocating this are obviously unconcerned that it would mean turning over the major newspaper in California’s largest media market to Eli Broad! I can see the signs now “Plutocrats for local control!” It’s absurd. And I’ll use this opportunity to mention that the newspaper has improved a great deal after replacinig Eli’s pal Austin Beutner with a real newspaper professional. Howard Blume’s articles are obviously not edited to death now by someone intent on avoiding offending Eli. Howard’s been allowed to shine, and readers are better for it.
The only way for readers to believe that Eli Broad does not have editorial control is for the Times to issue a report, say, twice a year, that documents the dates that Eli Broad and his cronies meet with the editorial board and then offering regular public education advocates equal time. I suppose the headline would read “Hell has Frozen Over”.
And thank you Alex Caputo-Pearl, for calling this out so clearly.
I couldn’t believe the article on the TeachPlus teacher. Is she not bright enough to realize that she should feel insulted?
We can have billionaires or we can have democracy but not both. Billionaire Eli Broad buys out news coverage of education to favor his privatization scheme. The billionaire Waltons spent over $200 million from their Wal-Mart fortune to privatize public schools in 2014. Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg dumped $100 million to help push merit pay and privatization in Newark. Billionaire widow Laurene Jobs and billionaire hedge funders from Wall Street are also spending against the public sector, as are the billionaire Koch Brothers who will spend nearly a billion alone on the 2016 Presidential election season. Billionaire former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg privatized the NYC public schools and paved the way for characterizers Eva Moskowitz and Geoffrey Canada; when Bloomberg demanded an illegal third term as Mayor he bought the office with a huge $110 million campaign fund and with the support of the three billionaires who control mass media in NYC, Zuckerman of the Daily News, Murdoch of the Post, and Sulzberger of the NY Times. The long-time chums of billionaire Eli Broad, Hillary and Bill Clinton, are readying their move back into the White House with Wall St. money.
Vast wealth despises and demolishes democracy. If we are finally going to have a democratic society with democratic public schools, we have to stop the wealth and power of the billionaire class now running amok across school and society.
AMEN, IRA.
Is there any difference between Eli Broad and Donald Trump. They prefer to preach their beliefs with no collaboration from the people. Little people continue to have no voice and no visibility in the world of the philanthropists. They are unable to see the other side.
Click to access 02ba00886acd61b85f37381c2ab7755c.pdf
Everyday turns up another plot by the billionaires. Why should we believe that the Waltons, KFC and Taco Bell want to help their employees get their GED’s, now that the testing, with its huge failure rate, is a Pearson product?