|
Revolutionary socialist alliance developed and funded by a
network of overtly anti-capitalist individuals, groups and
foundations to silence conservative media, leaving only left-wing
viewpoints.
Free
Press
(501(c)(3)
2008 Revenue: $4,351,393
2008 Assets: $3,914,786
40 Main St. Suite 301
Florence, MA 01062
www.freepress.net
Telephone: 413-585-1533 Facsimile: 413-585-8904
Contact Information: Ms. Kimberly Longey,
Managing Director
EIN: 41-2106721
Registered in the District of Columbia: August
14, 2003
(Filing 232932)
Registered foreign corporation in Massachusetts: December 15, 2003
(ID 413106721)
Exempt since:
2004
Self Description:
Free Press is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization working to reform the media. Through education,
organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media
ownership, strong public media, quality journalism, and universal
access to communications.
Actual:
Revolutionary
socialist alliance developed and funded by a network of overtly
anti-capitalist individuals, groups and foundations. Acts to dispossess corporate media of broadcast
license ownership, and to eliminate corporate capitalism generally.
Near-term goal is to shut down conservative talk shows and fight
viewpoints from the right regardless of the source. Acts as a command center
for attacks against specific opponents, mobilizing many left wing
groups in a large alliance. Preaches "reforming democracy"
in the sense of imposing "Democratic Republic of America" socialist-style central control over
society to insure
that only leftist views prevail.
Founded
with initial 2003 grants of $478,000 from Bill Moyers'
Schumann Center for Media and Democracy; $294,667 from the
Media
Education Foundation of Northampton, Massachusetts; $30,000 from the
Albert A. List Foundation (one of the last grants before the foundation's
planned 2004 spend-out of its assets and termination); and $25,000 from
the Overbrook Foundation for a conference.
|
Free
Press
financial condition 2008
|
Revenue |
|
Expenses |
|
Contributions |
$3,951,549 |
|
Government Grants |
$0 |
|
Program Services |
$284,936 |
|
Investments |
$114,908 |
|
Special Events |
$0 |
|
Sales |
$0 |
|
Other |
$0 |
|
|
|
Program Services |
$3,717,435 |
|
Administration |
$152,379 |
|
Fundraising |
$457,423 |
|
Total Expenditures |
$4,327,237 |
|
|
Total Revenue |
$4,351,393 |
|
NET
GAIN/LOSS |
$24,156 |
|
|
Three Co-Founders:
Robert W. McChesney
Founding Treasurer of Free Press and
Action Fund
Theoretician
and Prophet:
Professor,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Department of Communication. Hosts
“Media
Matters” weekly radio commentary on
the university's NPR affiliate, WILL-AM radio.
McChesney, long-time editor of the overtly
socialist
Monthly Review, is
now a contributor
and is a member of the board of directors of the Monthly
Review Foundation (founded 1980 in New
York City;
2008 revenue:
$1,013,002)
that operates the magazine and
book publisher. He has written or
edited 12 award-winning books against corporate media. He is
a director of the Urbana Champaign Independent Media
Center and a trustee of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation.
His overall views are summarized in a quote from the August
2009 issue of The Bullet, published by the
Toronto-based Socialist Project:
|
Instead of waiting for the revolution to happen,
we learned that unless you make significant
changes in the media, it will be vastly more
difficult to have a revolution. While the media
is not the single most important issue in the
world, it is one of the core issues that any
successful Left project needs to integrate into
its strategic program. |
John Nichols
Founding Secretary of the Action Fund in
2004
Not a founding officer of Free Press in 2003
 Practitioner:
Political correspondent for
The Nation and associate editor of
Madison, Wisconsin's
Capital Times..He is a
regular contributor to
In These Times and
The Progressive. An early blogger
(1999), he writes "The Beat" blog for The Nation. He
was instrumental in arranging Free Press's November, 2003
kickoff gathering in Madison,
the
National Conference on Media Reform,
with a $25,000 grant from the Overbrook Foundation of New
York. Nichols co-authored a slim 128-page book with
McChesney in 2002 titled, Our Media, Not Theirs: The
Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media. Forewords
were provided by left-wing stars Noam Chomsky, Barbara
Ehrenreich, and Ralph Nader. It became a manual for radicals
when Free Press was organized shortly after its release. In
2010, Nichols and McChesney joined again to co-author
The
Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution
that Will Begin the World Again,
a
dystopian/utopian take on socialist control of the news
media that floats somewhere between apocalyptic and giddy.
Booklist
reviewer Vanessa Bush summed up the Nichols/McChesney
agenda:
|
Their bottom line: without some kind of
government support, journalism as we know it
will not survive. Despite resistance to the idea
of government support of media, they point to
postal subsidies dating back to the 1700s. They
also offer the model of government and
philanthropic support of media in Britain (the
BBC and the Guardian), as well as the much
leaner history of government support for public
broadcasting in the U.S. Among their
suggestions: worker and community cooperative
ownership of local media and quasi nonprofit
news organizations. The authors argue
passionately for radical solutions but also
offer an exhilarating vision for the direction
of American journalism. |
Josh Silver
Founding President and Executive Director of
Free Press and the Action Fund
(2008 personal income - $105,132 salary, $14,892 benefits,
$18,599
other compensation)
 Activist:
While he was Fundraising Director
of the Smithsonian
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
in Washington, asking rich foundations for donations and
discovering they were congenial, knowledgeable, and
like-minded, Silver's long-term loathing of corporate media and
his admiration for McChesney's book,
Rich Media, Poor
Democracy, led him to contact the professor and ask for
advice on how to dismantle corporate dominance.
McChesney said anti-corporate-media groups "needed a
committed, formidable lobbying force." Silver's
Smithsonian contacts in the foundation world quickly
convened a formidable money force for him to create Free
Press, including an initial board member, Olga Davidson
Nagy, chair of Ilex Foundation (a Rockefeller corporate
foundation run by profoundly talented scholars) and
donations from Overbook Foundation, run by a board of
directors of cutting-edge artistry and deep scholarship,
along with good relations with Bill Moyers' Schumann
Center for Media and Democracy. Silver created the
lobbying group Free Press Action Fund and the 501(c)(3)
Free Press simultaneously in Washington, D.C. on August
14, 2003, but did not register Free Press in
Massachusetts for another month and the Action Fund not
until May 2004. |
Free Press
Officers and Directors
2009
| Name |
Title |
Compensation |
|
KIMBERLY LONGEY |
ASSISTANT SECRETARY &
ASSISTANT TREASURER |
$114,023 |
|
JOSHUA SILVER |
PRESIDENT/EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR |
$105,132 |
|
ROBERT W. MCCHESNEY |
DIRECTOR |
$0 |
|
JOHN NICHOLS |
DIRECTOR |
$0 |
|
TIM WU |
CHAIRMAN |
$0 |
|
Marcy Carsey |
DIRECTOR |
$0 |
|
KIM GANDY |
SECRETARY
/ DIRECTOR |
$0 |
| Olga Davidson |
DIRECTOR |
$0 |
| James Early |
DIRECTOR |
$0 |
| Lawrence Lessig |
DIRECTOR |
$0 |
WHO ARE THESE GUYS?
| Name |
INSIDER
NETWORK |
KIMBERLY LONGEY |
former
Deputy Director, Proteus Fund |
TIM WU |
Professor
of Law, Columbia University |
OLGA
DAVIDSON |
Chairman,
Ilex Foundation
Visiting Associate Professor,
Middle Eastern Program, Wellesley College
|
MARCY CARSEY |
Television producer, Carsey-Werner Company |
KIM
GANDY |
Former
President, National Organization for Women
Former President, NOW Foundation
Former Chair, NOW Political Action Committee |
JAMES
COUNTS EARLY |
Former
Heritage Director, Smithsonian
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Former associate
professor, Antioch College, Washington, D.C.
Director,
Children's Studio School
Director, National Black
Consortium |
LAWRENCE LESSIG |
Director,
Center for Ethics, Harvard
University
Professor of law,
Harvard Law School.
Founding board member,
Creative Commons
Board member,
Software Freedom Law Center
Former board member,
Electronic Frontier Foundation |
|
Donor |
Amount |
Year
|
Purpose |
SCHUMANN CENTER FOR MEDIA AND
DEMOCRACY INC
New York |
$750,000 |
2009 |
Media |
BOSTON FOUNDATION INC
Boston
Massachusetts |
$30,000 |
2009 |
Operating support |
HULL FAMILY FOUNDATION
Chicago
Illinois |
$25,000 |
2009 |
|
CRAIGSLIST CHARITABLE FUND
San Francisco
California |
$25,000 |
2009 |
General grant intended to further
charitable purposes |
BOHEMIAN FOUNDATION
Ft. Collins
Colorado |
$100,000 |
2009 |
2009 General operating |
BOHEMIAN FOUNDATION
Ft. Collins
Colorado |
$100,000 |
2009 |
General operations |
THE DUDLEY FOUNDATION
Bellingham
Washington |
$16,000 |
2009 |
Carry out the objectives of the
foundation |
SANDLER FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$500,000 |
2009 |
General support |
LEAR FAMILY FOUNDATION
Beverly Hills
California |
$10,000 |
2008 |
|
THE DUDLEY FOUNDATION
Bellingham
Washington |
$15,600 |
2008 |
Carry out objectives of
foundation |
GLASER PROGRESS FOUNDATION
Seattle
Washington |
$50,000 |
2008 |
Media reform conference |
SANDLER FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$500,000 |
2008 |
For meeting the challenge grant
for 2008 |
LELAND FIKES FOUNDATION INC
Dallas
Texas |
$100,000 |
2008 |
General support |
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT PROJECT
INSTITUTE INC
Pacific Palisades
California |
$30,000 |
2008 |
General Support |
BOHEMIAN FOUNDATION
Ft. Collins
Colorado |
$100,000 |
2008 |
2008 General operations |
WALLACE GLOBAL FUND
District Of Columbia |
$50,000 |
2008 |
General support year 2 |
MORGAN FAMILY FOUNDATION
Yellow Springs
Ohio |
$10,000 |
2008 |
For scholarship assistance to
enable residents of MN & OH to attend the National
Conference for Media Reform |
TIDES FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$10,000 |
2008 |
General support |
TIDES FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$5,000 |
2008 |
General support |
THE PBL FUND
Cleveland
Ohio |
$50,000 |
2008 |
General support |
MOULIN ROUGE FOUNDATION INC
Northampton
Massachusetts |
$28,000 |
2008 |
Support for education |
NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION
New York |
$60,000 |
2008 |
2008 national conference for
media reform |
QUIXOTE FOUNDATION INC
Seattle
Washington |
$100,000 |
2008 |
General operating support |
WOODCOCK FOUNDATION
New York |
$100,000 |
2008 |
|
SCHOONER FOUNDATION
Boston
Massachusetts |
$50,000 |
2008 |
General support |
FORD FOUNDATION
New York |
$300,000 |
2008 |
General support to promote
diverse and independent media ownership, strong
public media and universal access to communications |
OVERBROOK FOUNDATION
New York |
$50,000 |
2008 |
General operating support |
CHARLES H REVSON FOUNDATION INC
New York |
$100,000 |
2008 |
To support its efforts to preset
open access to the internet |
CHARLES H REVSON FOUNDATION INC
New York |
$100,000 |
2008 |
To promote a national broadband
policy that ensures affordable and accessible high
speed internet for all Americans |
PARK FOUNDATION INC
Ithaca
New York |
$225,000 |
2008 |
General operating support |
SCHUMANN CENTER FOR MEDIA AND
DEMOCRACY INC
New York |
$500,000 |
2008 |
General support to advance
citizen action on media reform |
BAYTREE FUND
Arcadia
California |
$25,000 |
2008 |
General support |
BARBRA STREISAND FOUNDATION
Santa Monica
California |
$10,000 |
2008 |
General program support |
TIDES FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$57,000 |
2008 |
General support |
FORD FOUNDATION
New York |
$300,000 |
2007 |
Leverage knowledge about
electronic media policy on the ongoing debates on
media reform |
PARK FOUNDATION INC
Ithaca
New York |
$250,000 |
2007 |
Media reform work in 2008 |
OVERBROOK FOUNDATION
New York |
$50,000 |
2007 |
General Operating Support |
ROCKEFELLER BROTHERS FUND INC
New York |
$75,000 |
2007 |
For general support |
BOSTON FOUNDATION INC
Boston
Massachusetts |
$70,000 |
2007 |
Rodgers community fund |
SAGNER FAMILY FOUNDATION
Livingston
New Jersey |
$40,000 |
2007 |
Promotes public participation in
media policy |
QUIXOTE FOUNDATION INC
Seattle
Washington |
$75,000 |
2007 |
General operating support |
TOWN CREEK FOUNDATION INC
Easton
Maryland |
$50,000 |
2007 |
General Support |
TIDES FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$82,000 |
2007 |
|
WALLACE GLOBAL FUND
Washington DC |
$75,000 |
2007 |
General support |
LELAND FIKES FOUNDATION INC
Dallas
Texas |
$100,000 |
2007 |
General support |
BOHEMIAN FOUNDATION
Ft. Collins
Colorado |
$100,000 |
2007 |
General operations |
LEAR FAMILY FOUNDATION
Beverly Hills
California |
$20,000 |
2007 |
|
ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND INC
New York |
$25,000 |
2007 |
Funds for general support |
GLASER PROGRESS FOUNDATION
Seattle
Washington |
$50,000 |
2006 |
Media reform conference |
LELAND FIKES FOUNDATION INC
Dallas
Texas |
$100,000 |
2006 |
General operating support |
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT PROJECT
INSTITUTE INC
Pacific Palisades
California |
$30,000 |
2006 |
General support |
JOYCE FOUNDATION
Chicago
Illinois |
$50,000 |
2006 |
To organza three 'Future of the
Media' town hall meetings-in Cleveland, Milwaukee,
and Champaign, Illinois-at which public testimony
would be gathered on issues related to the
reauthorization of the Telecommunications Act (l
yr.) |
WALLACE GLOBAL FUND
Washington DC |
$100,000 |
2006 |
General support |
TOWN CREEK FOUNDATION INC
Easton
Maryland |
$25,000 |
2006 |
General support |
BAYTREE FUND
Arcadia
California |
$25,000 |
2006 |
General support |
NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION
New York |
$50,000 |
2006 |
2007 National conference for
media reform |
QUIXOTE FOUNDATION INC
Seattle
Washington |
$6,500 |
2006 |
For mother jones printed |
THE PARTRIDGE FOUNDATION
New York |
$1,500,000 |
2006 |
|
HKH FOUNDATION
New York |
$50,000 |
2006 |
|
SCHUMANN CENTER FOR MEDIA AND
DEMOCRACY INC
New York |
$1,600,000 |
2006 |
A Challenged grant of $600000 on
a $1 for $1 matching basis to advance citizen action
on media reform; a grant of $1000000 for general
support |
OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE
New York |
$10,000 |
2006 |
To enable distribution to
fighting for air |
OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE
New York |
$400,000 |
2006 |
General support |
PARK FOUNDATION INC
Ithaca
New York |
$200,000 |
2006 |
General operations |
SURDNA FOUNDATION INC
New York |
$100,000 |
2006 |
Support for a campaign to
advocate for the importance and necessity of
nonprofit and noncommercial media in the United
States and to parlay support for the issues into
specific policy proposals |
CHARLES H REVSON FOUNDATION INC
New York |
$100,000 |
2006 |
To support the efforts of free
press to preserve open access to the internet |
FORD FOUNDATION
New York |
$100,000 |
2006 |
For research and content
development for state and local issue components of
www. Free press net and to create Spanish language
version |
OVERBROOK FOUNDATION
New York |
$50,000 |
2006 |
General operating support |
OVERBROOK FOUNDATION
New York |
$10,000 |
2006 |
1000 copies of the new book
'Fighting for Air by Eric Kleinenberg' |
BARBRA STREISAND FOUNDATION
Santa Monica
California |
$10,000 |
2006 |
General program support |
THE THRESHOLD FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$9,136 |
2005 |
General support |
HKH FOUNDATION
New York |
$50,000 |
2005 |
|
OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE
New York |
$200,000 |
2005 |
To provide general support |
SCHUMANN CENTER FOR MEDIA AND
DEMOCRACY INC
New York |
$755,000 |
2005 |
A challenge grant of $600000- To
advance citizen action on media reform. The
challenge is on a $1 for $1 matching basis. A grant
of $155000- To fund public education efforts on the
mission of public broadcasting |
NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION
New York |
$35,000 |
2005 |
2005 National Conference for
Media Reform |
SURDNA FOUNDATION INC
New York |
$200,000 |
2005 |
|
JOYCE FOUNDATION
Chicago
Illinois |
$30,000 |
2005 |
|
PARK FOUNDATION INC
Ithaca
New York |
$250,000 |
2005 |
Campaign for the Future of Public
Broadcasting |
TOWN CREEK FOUNDATION INC
Easton
Maryland |
$25,000 |
2005 |
For general support |
WALLACE GLOBAL FUND
Washington DC
|
$100,000 |
2005 |
|
TIDES FOUNDATION
San Francisco
California |
$9,882 |
2005 |
|
GLASER PROGRESS FOUNDATION
Seattle
Washington |
$50,000 |
2005 |
National conference on media
reform |
ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND INC
New York |
$5,000 |
2005 |
Funding for general support
of Free Press Action Fund |
GLASER PROGRESS FOUNDATION
Seattle
Washington |
$50,000 |
2004 |
Media reform |
QUIXOTE FOUNDATION INC
Seattle
Washington |
$50,000 |
2004 |
General operations for a more
competitive and public interest oriented media
system with a strong nonprofit and noncommercial
sector |
WALLACE GLOBAL FUND
Washington DC |
$100,000 |
2004 |
General support-year 1 |
PARK FOUNDATION INC
Ithaca
New York |
$75,000 |
2004 |
General operating support |
OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE
New York |
$200,000 |
2004 |
To provide support for the
National Conference on Media Reform |
SCHUMANN CENTER FOR MEDIA AND
DEMOCRACY INC
New York |
$600,000 |
2004 |
A challenge grant of $600000 to
advance citizen action on media reform. The
challenge is on a $1 for $1 matching basis |
OVERBROOK FOUNDATION
New York |
$50,000 |
2004 |
General operating support |
ROCKEFELLER BROTHERS FUND INC
New York |
$50,000 |
2004 |
To its 2005 National Conference
on media reform |
FORD FOUNDATION
New York |
$60,000 |
2004 |
For two internet-based research
and education initiatives, state & local watch and
media policy around the globe |
OVERBROOK FOUNDATION
New York |
$25,000 |
2003 |
National Conference on Media
Reform |
SCHUMANN CENTER FOR MEDIA AND
DEMOCRACY INC
New York |
$478,000 |
2003 |
A challenge grant of $600,000 to
advance citizen action on media reform. The
challenge is on a $1 for $1 matching basis. |
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