ALTERNATIVE RADIO / Z MAGAZINE / SOUTH END PRESS

ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP:
SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD FOUNDATION?

Part 4:

ALTERNATIVE RADIO / Z MAGAZINE / SOUTH END PRESS

Although David Barsamian's ALTERNATIVE RADIO show is aired on a number of NPR stations which are subsidized by both corporate underwriters and grants from various Establishment foundations, the Institute for Social & Cultural Change Communications Inc. (of which ALTERNATIVE RADIO is a part) doesn't appear to have yet been given grants directly from the Ford Foundation or other Establishment foundations. However, one of ALTERNATIVE RADIO's most frequently featured guests, MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, was given a $350,000 "Kyoto Prize" by the Japanese Establishment's Inamori Foundation in 1988.

The Institute for Social & Cultural Change Communications Inc. does business as Z magazine. Ironically, although it may have taken its name from a Costa-Gavras film adaptation of the novel Z (which dramatizes the uncovering of an assassination conspiracy), Z magazine has attempted to marginalize 9/11 conspiracy researchers and journalists in recent months on its web site and in its printed pages..

According to its 990 form for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2000, Z magazine takes in over $641,000 a year in gross evenues and only has annual expenses of $531,000. A big chunk of Z magazine's annual revenues goes to three members of just one family: the Albert-Sargent family. At least $120,000 per year of Z magazine's total revenues ends up in the pockets of either Michael Albert, his partner Lydia Sargent or Lydia's son Eric Sargent. All three family members are each paid an annual salary of $30,000 by Z magazine. An additional $10,000 in "rent" is paid to each family member by Z magazine for the "office space" that the Albert-Sargent family "rents" from itself, to publish its Z magazine and maintain its web site.

Although the left entrepreneur family that publishes Z magazine took in $120,000 in the fiscal year ending 12/31/2000, all the writers it published were only paid $38,700 during the year, for the articles they wrote.

Of the $38,700 which the Albert-Sargent family paid its writers in 2000, $4,400 was given to ALTERNATIVE RADIO producer David Barsamian, whose book THE DECLINE AND FALLOF PUBLIC BROADCASTING, was published, with an introduction by DEMOCRACY NOW INC's Amy Goodman, in 2000 by South End Press. Although a chart in Barsamian's book on public broadcasting indicates that the Ford Foundation was among the PBS national programming underwriters who contributed more than $1 million in 2000, the book's index apparently contains no reference to the Ford Foundation's crucial role in setting up the public broadcasting system. Barsamian's book index also contains no reference to the Schumann Foundation, although it makes 3 references to book passages that describe Schumann Foundation President Bill Moyers' Public Affairs TV programs in a favorable way.

South End Press is the business enterprise of the Institute for Social &Cultural Change publishing firm which the Albert-Sargent family started in 1984, apparently with the help of $232,956 in low-interest "loans" from various individuals and organizations, that will no longer have to be paid back. According to the South End Press's form 990 for the fiscal year ending 6/30/200, the book publishing arm of Z magazine (which markets books like PROPAGANDA AND THE PUBLIC MIND: CONVERSATIONS WITH NOAM CHOMSKY that ALTERNATIVE RADIO producer Barsamian co-authored), took in over $1 million from its book sales.

So if Z magazine/web site and South End Press were considered as one left business entitity, we would be talking about a business that takes in about $1.7 million a year from the cultural leftism market. In times of U.S. imperialist war, anti-war books by anti-conspiracy theorist Chomsky, such as 9/11, tend to sell well and even make mainstream media best-seller lists. So, even without being directly dependent upon grants from Establishment Foundations which wish to discourage public opinion from considering the evidence dug up by U.S. conspiracy journalists and researchers, ALTERNATIVE RADIO/Z MAGAZINE/SOUTH END PRESS may have a vested economic interest in attempting to marginalize anti-war journalists involved in 9/11 conspiracy research and journalism.

to part 5...

[click here for email-formatted version of this page]

questionsquestions.net