Wall Street Protests

[Lamplighter]

Sorry, hit the wrong button while composing another post

[Lamplighter]

How is this for an attention-grabbing headline and lead paragraph from a reputable news service ?

REUTERS
By Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK | Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:50am EDT

Who's behind the Wall St. protests?

Lead paragraph:
There has been much speculation over who is financing the disparate protest
which has spread to cities across America and lasted nearly four weeks.
One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros,
who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans.
Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.

There follows a description of the non-OWS history of Soros.
Then it turns to what Reuters has found out:

12th paragraph:

According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009,
Soros' Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to the Tides Center,
a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors,
directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups.
Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.

Disclosure documents also show Tides, which declined comment,
gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010,
including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.

Aides to Soros say any connection is tenuous and that Soros has never heard of Adbusters.
Soros himself declined comment.

No matter, the small $ or the time-frames, let's get to the red meat...

[b]20th paragraph:

Lasn [Adbusters co-founder] said Adbusters is 95 percent funded by subscribers paying for the magazine.

"George Soros's ideas are quite good, many of them.
I wish he would give Adbusters some money, we sorely need it,
she said. "He's never given us a penny."

But Reuters won't take no for an answer, and so they bring in another attention-grabbing name.
If the Soros name doesn't stir your blood, then this one certainly will.

22nd paragraph:

Other support for Occupy Wall Street has come from online funding website Kickstarter,
where more than $75,000 has been pledged,
deliveries of food and from cash dropped in a bucket at the park.

Liberal film maker Michael Moore has also pledged to donate money.

The article ends at paragraph 32


My congratulations to Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols of Reuters
for their excellent penetrating investigative reporting,
and placing such definitive incriminating facts in the middle of the article.

Great reporting, guys - NOT

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Great reporting, guys - NOT

CSNBC wrote a pretty good piece about George Soros and his supposed clandestine support of Occupy Wall Street:

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Occupy Wall Street is that it is a financial success. In just four weeks since the protest began, it has raised well over $200,000 and collected far more than that in donated food and clothing.

There has been a lot of speculation who might be financing the protests. One person sometimes signaled out is George Soros, the well-known hedge fund manager who has used his bank-account to fund progressive causes quite a few times.

Soros no doubt supports many of the sentiments of the Occupy Wall Streeters. But there doesn’t seem to be much of direct connection. A Reuters investigation found only the most tenuous connection.

It may have been tenuous, but Reuters certainly made the most of it.