C: Dan Alcalde via Flikr
C: Dan Alcalde via Flikr

Last night, the media company, Meredith, announced it was buying Time magazine for an estimated $2.8 billion.

Meredith Corporation Chairman and CEO, Stephen Lacy, said: “We are creating a premier media company serving nearly 200 million American consumers across industry-leading digital, television, print, video, mobile, and social platforms positioned for growth.”

Buried deep in the press release was where a significant proportion of this money was coming from: “Meredith has also secured $650 million in preferred equity commitment from Koch Equity Development (KED).”

And here is where the alarm bells should start ringing. The KED fund is run by the Koch Brothers, some of the biggest funders of groups promoting climate denial and libertarian causes for the last two decades.

To try and assuage peoples’ concerns, Meredith’s board added in the statement that the Koch brothers will not have seats on the company’s board or any “influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations.” John Fahey, Time’s chairman, said the sale was in the best interests of the company.

But not everyone believes the spin. You don’t invest $650 million for nothing.

Charles Alexander spent 23 working for Time as a reporter, writer and editor – thirteen years working on the environmental beat, including the iconic 1989 cover which had the earth as “Planet of the Year”, which stated that “man has reached a point in his evolution where he has the power to affect, for better or worse, the present and future state of the planet”.

In the following years, as scientists have increasingly warned about our warming world and the state of the world, the Koch brothers have spent millions denying the problem of climate change.

Writing in the Nation magazine last week, before the deal was formalised, Alexander said: “Can you imagine what it would be like to see your life’s work suddenly go down the drain? I can—right now.”

Alexander wrote of his “despair” at the deal, as “Koch Industries is a big player in the oil and gas business and whose philanthropy has long funded climate denial.”

He added: “If Charles and David Koch gain control of Time, I expect my life’s work to be repudiated in the very magazine in which it appeared. The thought is almost too much to bear … it is perverse and dangerous for two billionaires with no commitment to factual truth to be permitted to buy a magazine that has been a voice for reason and use it to further their narrow business interests.”

He ended by saying that “my beloved Time, once a soldier for truth, may have fallen casualty to the forces of greed and deception.”

And he is right. The Koch brothers are the central funding machine in the climate denial movement. But it is much more: their “dark money” has helped propel Donald trump into power, and helped manipulate the stories you see and the words you hear. But they do it through others: right wing think tanks or other conservative outlets.

And now they will do it via Time.

Mary Battari, from the Center for Media and Democracy told the Guardian she considered it “a smart move” on Koch’s part. “The only way they can convince the public not to worry their heads about climate change and to forget about regulating the fossil fuel industry is to create their own media megaphone.”

So nearly thirty years after Time’s iconic “Planet of the year” cover, the magazine could soon be running headlines like: “Exclusive: the world is flat.”

2 Comments

  • We Are All Ready Baked in to a 7C. – 12C. Temp. Rise, even if we stopped emitting Carbon and Methane Right Now !

    Heating Up, and Burning Up, with Record Heat and Rain Year after Year

    The Siberian Methane emission have been growing since 2003, and a new geological term has been coined Pingos 200 foot wide blow holes, blowing up from the heated up Mantle. These emission are not in the IPPC Climate models.

    What is the hottest Temp. it has Rained, here on Earth ?

    133F. Death Valley Ca. 2015

    Wet Bulb Index, Humidity and Temp. above 80.F, starts shutting down the bodies cooling systems in elderly and young.

    “There is no Carbon, Methane, or Nuclear Atmospheric Budget any more and 7C – 12C. is baked in according to both ” Kevin Hester, an Guy McPherson

    With Record Breaking Wind,Hurricanes,Volcanoes,Tornadoes, Earth Quakes, Rain, Snow and Heat !.

    That are HIGHER, Than Normal ! We are going to go Off the Charts !

    There is No Atmospheric Budget For More Carbon, Methane, or Nuclear !

    We must Stop Trump, Koch bros, Warren Buffets, Bill Gates, and their Fossil Fuel allies from FUKUSHIMIATIZING Us !

    Greenland is Melting and Calving Now, Jonas just went over Greenland at above Freezing Temps, for the first Time in the Dead of Winter 2016

    “And for the Winter of 2016 it’s possible that the Arctic may never experience typical conditions.For, according to NOAA, the first half of February saw this record, Spring-like, warmth extend on through today.

    It’s as if these coldest zones in the Northern Hemisphere haven’t yet experienced Winter— as if the freak storm that drove Arctic temperatures to record levels during late December has, ever since, jammed the thermometer into typical April levels and left it stuck there. ” Robert Scribbler

    Greenland has 20 Feet of Sea Level Rise !

    Now is the Time for Feed in Tariff Clean Kilowatts, Home Owners and Commercial Business owners selling Renewable Energy, Wind and Solar to the Utility !

    Dump Net Metering (Second Utility) Third Party Leasing.

    Protect Our Communities with Solar Policies that keep the Money in the Wallets and Purses of Head of House Holds.

    In Order to Ready Themselves for coming, Record Breaking Rain, Wind, Snow and Temps. Food Shortages, Heat,, Floods, Fire, Quakes, Volcanoes, Hurricanes. and Sea Level Rising 220 Feet !

    With Ca. Residential and Commercial Feed in Tariff

    Help Protect Hard Working, Tax Paying, Voting, Citizens from our Koch Bros, Warren Buffet, Warren Gates, Fossil Fueled Energy and Water Policies !

    Allow Home Owners to sell Their Renewable Energy to the Utility, aka Feed in Tariff.

    16 cents per kilowatt hour, 5to the grid for usage, 11 cents Home Owner !

    We Need To Decommission are Nuclear Reactors Now !

    And Relocate to above 3,000 Feet !

    Each 1C. Temp Rise, Atmospheric Moisture increases 7%We have increased Temp 1.2C.- 1.5C and Climbing

    1850 ppm Carbon 270

    1980 ppm carbon 350

    2015 ppm of Carbon 402 and Rising

    2016 ppm carbon 406 and rising !

    What will the ppm of Carbon be when Greenland All Melts ?

    Diablo Nuclear, San Onofre Fuel Rods, and All Nuclear needs to be relocated to 3000 feet above Sea Level

    Over 3 Million Years of Waxing and Waning From the Poles, with the Arctic Keeping North America Cool, Now it is Greenland Because of Fossil Fuels !

    Massive Sea Life Die Off on Pacific and Atlantic Coast !

    Pacific and Atlantic Oceans 4 – 18 degrees warmer than Normal

    Antarctica has 200 feet of Sea Level Rise

    Arctic Region Warming Twice as fast as the rest of the planet !

    Over 440 Nuclear Reactors at Sea Level Now !

    From Kevin Hester comes this message: Professor Guy McPherson KevinHester.Live and Facebook events will be created as the date draws near.
    ______Sign and Share for a Ca. Residential Feed in Tariff. Go to the youtube site, look six inches below video, click on Show More, then click on blue link to sign the petition.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9GRkZMTqCs?
    Show less
    REPLY

    Attachments area
    Preview YouTube video We Need To Ban Fracking.

    We Need To Ban Fracking.

  • Modern man has essentially invested their future on a “house of cards” by basing the majority of the economy on fossil fuels, and, I believe, are polluting mankind to extinction. Greed is essentially unsustainable.

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