MediaWatch: November 1993

Media Foundations Give Generously to Liberal Groups in the Bush Era

The Media Philanthropy Gap

Despite liberal claims that the media are dominated by conservative corporations, media company foundations or media family foundations have long acted like liberals in their philanthropy. In two previous studies of media foundation giving from 1982-88, MediaWatch analysts identified $3.95 million in grants to political groups that were either identifiably conservative or liberal, of which $3.557 million (90 percent) went to liberal groups.

To revisit media foundation giving, MediaWatch analysts reviewed 1989-1992 grant lists from the largest media foundations at the Foundation Center headquarters in Washington. Again, analysts found a pronounced preference for liberal groups: of $3.48 million in grants, $2.854 million (82 percent) went to liberal groups. Of the remaining $625,500 that went to conservative groups, almost all of it ($609,500) came from the General Electric Foundation. None of the other foundations gave more than two percent of their grants to conservatives.

Boston Globe Foundation: The Globe Foundation funded both national and local liberal activists, including American Documentary Inc., the producers of the PBS series P.O.V., which in 1991 featured Marlon Riggs' documentary on gay black men, Tongues Untied.

Left: 296,580 (100%)

$ 90,000 AIDS Action Committee

$ 3,000 American Documentary, Inc.

$ 5,000 American Friends Service Committee

$ 10,000 Boston Committee on Access to Health Care

$ 5,000 Boston Film/Video Foundation

$ 10,000 Child Care Resource Center

$ 13,000 Children's Defense Fund

$ 35,000 Fund for the Homeless

$ 3,000 Health Care for All

$ 7,500 Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation

$ 5,000 Mass. Affordable Housing Alliance

$ 5,080 Mass. Audubon Society

$ 24,000 Mass. Advocacy Center

$ 10,000 Mass. Coalition for the Homeless

$ 5,000 Mass. Committee for Children & Youth

$ 4,000 Mass. Immigration & Refugee Advocacy Coalition

$ 16,000 NAACP

$ 8,000 NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund

$ 5,000 National Toxics Campaign

$ 10,000 Oxfam America

$ 5,000 Planned Parenthood

$ 18,000 Urban League

General Electric Foundation: Like our 1989 study, the foundation of GE, owners of NBC, funded some conservative groups. On the liberal side, GE favored the Committee for Economic Development, a group of corporate executives (including GE's) advocating more spending on education and social programs.

Left: $1,621,132 (73%)

$ 40,000 Alliance to Save Energy

$ 98,696 Audubon Society

$120,000 Brookings Institution

$ 55,000 Center for National Policy

$400,000 Committee for Economic Development

$ 20,000 Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

$ 50,000 Conservation Foundation

$125,000 Environmental Law Institute

$ 60,000 Foreign Policy Association

$250,000 Institute for International Economics

$ 35,000 Joint Center for Political Studies

$ 60,000 League of United Latino American Citizens

$ 5,000 League of Women Voters Education Fund

$170,000 NAACP

$ 2,500 National Black Media Coalition

$ 25,000 National Leadership Coalition on Health Care Reform

$ 25,000 National Puerto Rican Coalition

$175,000 Urban League

$ 4,936 World Wildlife Fund

Right: $609,500 (27%)

$ 20,000 American Council for Capital Formation

$ 70,000 American Council on Science and Health

$125,000 American Enterprise Institute

$150,000 Center for Strategic and International Studies

$ 20,000 Citizens for a Sound Economy

$ 30,000 Heritage Foundation

$ 25,000 Hudson Institute

$ 10,000 Institute for Contemporary Studies

$ 20,000 Inst. for Research on the Economics of Taxation

$ 45,000 Manhattan Institute

$ 80,000 Media Institute

$ 14,500 Tax Foundation

New York Times Company Foundation: Environmental, ethnic, and pro-abortion groups stand out in the foundation's long list of small grants to liberal groups, including Planned Parenthood and their Alan Guttmacher Institute. Analysts also counted the foundation's matching grants for employee contributions. Starred entries were not originally selected by the foundation, but were picked by Times Company employees, including New York radio station WBAI, an outlet of the far-left Pacifica network. No matching grants went to identifiable conservative groups.

Left: $723,662 (98%)

$ 5,000 Alan Guttmacher Institute

$ 20,000 American Friends Service Committee

$ 10,000 Aspen Institute

$ 42,573 Audubon Society

$ 38,000 Brookings Institution

$ 15,000 Child Care Action Campaign

$ 14,000 Children's Defense Fund

$ 5,000 Child Welfare League of America

$ 2,000 Committee for Economic Development

$ 18,000 Council on Foreign Relations

$ 5,000 Earth Summit 1992

$ 42,000 Environmental Action Coalition

$ 11,329 Environmental Defense Fund

$ 3,000 Environmental Law Institute

$ 50,000 Foreign Policy Association

$ 10,000 Government Accountability Project

$ 4,850 Greenpeace*

$ 12,000 League of Women Voters Education Fund

$ 5,000 Legal Action for the Homeless

$ 30,000 NAACP

$ 38,000 NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund

$ 5,000 National Alliance to End Homelessness

$ 2,000 National Coalition Against Censorship

$ 7,000 National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

$ 2,500 National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association

$ 15,000 NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund

$ 30,000 National Public Radio

$ 10,000 National Security Archive

$ 22,127 Natural Resources Defense Council

$ 40,000 Partnership for the Homeless

$ 65,000 Planned Parenthood

$ 2,000 Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund

$ 1,603 Sierra Club*

$ 8,111 Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund

$ 10,000 Tufts Nutrition and Hunger Research Center

$ 49,000 Urban Coalition

$ 5,000 Urban Institute

$ 24,000 Urban League

$ 2,493 WBAI Radio*

$ 17,960 Wilderness Society

$ 10,000 Women's Equity Action League

$ 9,000 World Resources Institute

$ 5,116 World Wildlife Fund

Right: $16,000 (2%)

$ 4,000 American Enterprise Institute

$ 4,000 Manhattan Institute

$ 8,000 Media Institute

Philip L. Graham Fund: The Fund, honoring the former Washington Post owner and father of Post Publisher Donald Graham, is staffed mostly by Post officials. In 1992, the Graham Fund awarded a $5,000 grant to the Media Alliance for startup costs for the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.

Left: 213,500 (100%)

$ 20,000 Central America Refugee Center

$ 50,000 Children's Defense Fund

$ 20,000 Coalition for the Homeless

$ 20,000 Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

$ 5,000 Media Alliance

$ 15,000 Planned Parenthood

$ 8,500 United Nations Association

$ 50,000 Urban Institute

$ 25,000 Women's Legal Defense Fund

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