Remember “Zuckerbucks?” They were used to manipulate the 2020 elections by taking over elections using grant dollars, driving voter turnout in Blue areas primarily and giving Mark Zuckerberg access to the elections data around the country.

The MacArthur Foundation has decided to replicate the idea, only this time infiltrating the news media in a manner sure to take local news and make it even more Left-leaning.

This sort of effort is nothing new, but for the scale of it and the focus on local news outlets that tend to be more trusted than the national media. You may have already noticed that there are grants that fund news coverage of high-profile issues such as climate change, ensuring that the issue gets the kind of coverage the Left wants.

🎉We're proud to announce our first set of grants to support pooled and aligned grantmaking for #PressForward!

These grants include funding for infrastructure support and shared services, along with direct support for eight local newsrooms.

Learn more⬇️https://t.co/vowGcnJ5Zy

— MacArthur Foundation (@macfound) December 18, 2023

The MacArthur Foundation is simply extending a model the Left has found effective, taking over local media coverage to address the “news deserts” that are popping up everywhere.

As with Zuck’s support for elections, it all sounds warm and fuzzy, and as with Zuckerbucks, it will make what are nominally local organizations beholden to the agenda of big-money national players.

You can even see this in the grants they are announcing–nearly $50 million dollars of them.

MacArthur has also launched a new grantmaking strategy to support local news in alignment with Press Forward to provide direct grants to news organizations and outlets, each of which are also being supported by at least one other Press Forward funding partner. The first of those grants, which will provide infrastructure support and shared services, along with direct support for eight local newsrooms, are:

• 100 Days in Appalachia will receive $1 million through the Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project to support its news reporting on issues of significance to residents of Appalachia, with an emphasis on reaching young people and leading a community of practice, providing security and safety training, and other support services for reporters covering extremism.
• Buffalo’s Fire will receive $350,000 through the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance to support its North Dakota news reporting on the Fort Berthold and Twin Buttes communities, home to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations.
• Catchlight will receive $1 million for its support of visual storytellers working for local news outlets across the United States, supplementing vital reporting with images intended to deepen understanding of local issues.
• Charlottesville Tomorrow will receive $350,000 to support its reporting that serves residents underserved or misrepresented by media.
• Conecta Arizona will receive $350,000 for its reporting and engagement activities serving the Spanish-speaking residents of Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora.
• Documented will receive $500,000 for its accountability, investigative and engagement reporting on issues affecting the immigrant communities of New York City.
• El Tímpano will receive $500,000 for its reporting on, with, and for the Latinx and Indigenous Mayan immigrants in the San Francisco Bay area.
• Enlace Latino NC will receive $350,000 for its accountability, investigative, and engagement reporting serving the Spanish speaking communities of North Carolina.
• Free Press will receive $1 million to build and strengthen the capacity of local and state civic actors to inform the creation of policy environments that prioritize local information needs of underserved communities.
• Lawyers for Reporters will receive $450,000 to provide essential legal services on a pro-bono basis to news outlets.
• Mississippi Free Press will receive $350,000 for its reporting on the state capitol and rural areas of the state focusing on systemic and structural challenges, and race, gender, and LGBTQ+ issues.
• National Trust for Local News will receive $500,000 for its work to acquire and help transform local newspapers to create more sustainable and responsive news entities.
• NewsMatch, a program of the Institute for Nonprofit News will receive $3.5 million to provide matching grants for individual donations made to news outlets, and training and tools to bolster the fundraising capacity of newsrooms.
• Outlier Media will receive $1 million for its reporting addressing the information needs of Detroit residents, particularly low-income people and communities of color.
• Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy will receive $3.5 million to support Black, Indigenous, and People of Color-led newsrooms with grants and technical assistance.
• Rebuild Local News will receive $500,000 to support its national coalition that works to provide education on the need and opportunities for federal and local public policy in support of journalism sustainability.
• URL Media will receive $500,000 to support its network of Black and Brown publishers working to share content, distribution, and build shared revenue streams.

Within those grants is an obvious bias toward a certain range of issues. All the code words are there. Latinx, LGBTQIA, BIPOC, race, gender, you name it.

Local news tends to be about what is happening in the schools and local government; this will be about pushing the DEI agenda.

It’s just what America needs more of.

Nonprofits in America are a vital part of the Left’s infrastructure, and even foundations established by conservatives to promote conservative causes tend to drift Leftward over time. Think about who goes into nonprofits as a career move, and you see exactly why that is.

Foundations should have mandatory time limits placed on their existence, requiring them to spend down their endowments and close. The Philanthropy Roundtable even has suggestions on how to accomplish that. At the very least it would give the original donors some control over what their foundation turns into after they are gone.

It seems unlikely that John MacArthur would have decided to fund alphabet ideology with his legacy. I’m just guessing, but it’s a good guess. Paul Harvey was on the original board, and he was no lefty.

In any case, we can look forward to Leftism becoming even more entrenched in the news business as local news outlets become dependent upon the generosity of donors with an agenda.

Great.