Why is the EPA Funding a Private Newspaper?

September 15, 2012 | Filed under Barack Obama,Big government,corruption,Culture Of Corruption,Democrats,Economics,Entitlement Culture,Environment,Environmentalism,EPA,Global Warming,Liberals,Media | Posted by

The Environmental Protection Agency has been indulging its inner propagandist by spending at least $3.5 million to float newspaper that is purportedly “reporting” on the EPA’s pet issues. Unfortunately for the readers of this newspaper, the fact that the EPA is its sugar daddy is never told the reading public.

So much for an independent press!

The newspaper in question is the Chesapeake Bay Journal, a free publication that appears monthly across the Mid-Atlantic states. Environmental themed articles from this paper have also appeared in such newspapers as The Baltimore Sun.

This is no partisan issue, either as this has been going on for at least two decades.

For two decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has quietly funded the Bay Journal as an experiment in educating the public about environmental issues. Between 2005 and 2010 alone, the federal agency has given $3.5 million to the newspaper’s founding organization, the nonprofit Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, in part to help print and distribute the newspaper, according to documents reviewed by the Washington Guardian.

The newspaper’s editor, Karl Blankenship, says the publication gets about 70 percent of its annual funding from EPA, averaging between $250,000 and $350,000 a year.

The EPA’s inspector general, the agency’s watchdog, recently issued a report questioning the expenditures saying that the newspaper had not fulfilled its requirements to justify the costs.

“When recipients do not complete the required cost or price analysis, we have no assurance that prices are fair and reasonable. Without documentation demonstrating how the recipient evaluated the Bay Journal contractor’s performance, we cannot determine whether the contractor’s procurement of goods and services was proper.”

Naturally the paper disputes the claims.

The newspaper’s editor, Karl Blankenship, defends his paper’s collusion with the EPA and claims that the money is for “informing the public” about environmental issues. And, he claims, it is OK because “no one is getting rich” off the EPA’s payments.

But there is a greater question, here. Why do we have a federal agency funding a private newspaper at all? Since this is the EPA we are talking about here, it is obvious that this expenditure is meant to push its extreme environmental ideas on an unsuspecting reading public. This is just an effort to justify the EPA’s ongoing drive to give itself more power to control our daily lives by cajoling readers to accept its political point of view by stealth.

Further, how does any self-respecting “journalist” take money from the very agency it is supposed to be “reporting” on?

None of this should surprise anyone. Last month we reported that many newspapers are taking money from left-wing foundations to support “reporting” on issues dear to the left.

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Posted by on September 15, 2012.
Filed under Barack Obama, Big government, corruption, Culture Of Corruption, Democrats, Economics, Entitlement Culture, Environment, Environmentalism, EPA, Global Warming, Liberals, Media.
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, RightPundits.com, StoptheACLU.com, Human Events Magazine, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events.He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book "Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture" which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions, EMAIL Warner Todd Huston: igcolonel .at. hotmail.com"The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it." --Samuel Johnson

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  • GarandFan

    Perhaps, like the GSA, it’s time for a general housecleaning. Just think off all the “new” jobs Barry can claim he “created”.

    • warnertoddhuston

      Were I king for a day, I’d fire about 90% of ALL government workers (excluding first responders and military, of course). They are a useless drag on our economy.

  • ackwired

    Some more examples of the duopoly’s abuse of their total grip of power, and your tax dollars. Gov’t agencies funding newspapers, the Bush WH funding talk radio personnel. It will not stop as long as we keep voting in the duopoly.

    • warnertoddhuston

      Bush never funded any talk-radio (except Voice of America, which has been around for a long time).

      • ackwired
        • warnertoddhuston

          Again, you are caught lying. Armstrong Williams was paid to write, not be “talk radio personell.” Further, your post was worded to make it seem the Bush Admin funded all sorts of talk radio. THAT didn’t happen, either. Lastly, it was the Dept. of Education not Bush, just like I noted it was the EPA (AND I said it was non-partisan, to boot. I didn’t blame Obama). You just can’t stop lying can you?

          • ackwired

            There is always a convoluted rationalization and an attack when your side is caught.

          • warnertoddhuston

            You would know “convoluted.” I’ve never seen a post from you that wasn’t.