California is Buying Journalists at $20,000 Each

-- Daniel Greenfield/Sultan Knish

California Democrats are engaging in unprecedented efforts to drastically limit freedom of the press with legislation such as Assembly Bill 1821 to stonewall requests for public records and Assembly Bill 2624 to criminalize investigations of social services fraud even while the state uses non-disclosure agreements signed by elected officials to block reporting on its corruption.

Now the same political machine that blocks journalists and prosecutes is promising to aid journalism by handing out over $18 million in grants. The idea of corrupt government officials buying off newspapers and creating a friendly media is as old as Tammany Hall. Trading government ads for favorable coverage was a staple of 19th century media corruption, but the 21st century version of it has a new non-profit twist with government and tech money being funneled by partisan groups to buy reporters and newspapers, and control their coverage.