ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP: SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD FOUNDATION?
by bob feldman

Part 4:

ALTERNATIVE RADIO / Z MAGAZINE / SOUTH END PRESS

Although David Barsamian's ALTERNATIVE RADIO show is aired on a number
of NPR stations which are subsidized by both corporate underwriters and
grants from various Establishment foundations, the Institute for Social
& Cultural Change Communications Inc. (of which ALTERNATIVE RADIO is a
part) doesn't appear to have yet been given grants directly from the
Ford Foundation or other Establishment foundations. However, one of
ALTERNATIVE RADIO's most frequently featured guests, MIT Professor Noam
Chomsky, was given a $350,000 "Kyoto Prize" by the Japanese
Establishment's Inamori Foundation in 1988.

The Institute for Social & Cultural Change Communications Inc. does
business as Z magazine. Ironically, although it may have taken its name
from a Costa-Gavras film adaptation of the novel Z (which dramatizes the
uncovering of an assassination conspiracy), Z magazine has attempted to
marginalize 9/11 conspiracy researchers and journalists in recent months
on its web site and in its printed pages..

According to its 990 form for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2000,
Z magazine takes in over $641,000 a year in gross evenues and only has
annual expenses of $531,000. A big chunk of Z magazine's annual revenues
goes to three members of just one family: the Albert-Sargent family. At
least $120,000 per year of Z magazine's total revenues ends up in the
pockets of either Michael Albert, his partner Lydia Sargent or Lydia's
son Eric Sargent. All three family members are each paid an annual
salary of $30,000 by Z magazine. An additional $10,000 in "rent" is paid
to each family member by Z magazine for the "office space" that the
Albert-Sargent family "rents" from itself, to publish its Z magazine and
maintain its web site.

Although the left entrepreneur family that publishes Z magazine took in
$120,000 in the fiscal year ending 12/31/2000, all the writers it
published were only paid $38,700 during the year, for the articles they
wrote.

Of the $38,700 which the Albert-Sargent family paid its writers in 2000,
$4,400 was given to ALTERNATIVE RADIO producer David Barsamian, whose
book THE DECLINE AND FALLOF PUBLIC BROADCASTING, was published, with an
introduction by DEMOCRACY NOW INC's Amy Goodman, in 2000 by South End
Press. Although a chart in Barsamian's book on public broadcasting
indicates that the Ford Foundation was among the PBS national
programming underwriters who contributed more than $1 million in 2000,
the book's index apparently contains no reference to the Ford
Foundation's crucial role in setting up the public broadcasting system.
Barsamian's book index also contains no reference to the Schumann
Foundation, although it makes 3 references to book passages that
describe Schumann Foundation President Bill Moyers' Public Affairs TV
programs in a favorable way.

South End Press is the business enterprise of the Institute for Social
&Cultural Change publishing firm which the Albert-Sargent family started
in 1984, apparently with the help of $232,956 in low-interest "loans"
from various individuals and organizations, that will no longer have to
be paid back. According to the South End Press's form 990 for the fiscal
year ending 6/30/200, the book publishing arm of Z magazine (which
markets books like PROPAGANDA AND THE PUBLIC MIND: CONVERSATIONS WITH
NOAM CHOMSKY that ALTERNATIVE RADIO producer Barsamian co-authored),
took in over $1 million from its book sales.

So if Z magazine/web site and South End Press were considered as one
left business entitity, we would be talking about a business that takes
in about $1.7 million a year from the cultural leftism market. In times
of U.S. imperialist war, anti-war books by anti-conspiracy theorist
Chomsky, such as 9/11, tend to sell well and even make mainstream media
best-seller lists. So, even without being directly dependent upon grants
from Establishment Foundations which wish to discourage public opinion
from considering the evidence dug up by U.S. conspiracy journalists and
researchers, ALTERNATIVE RADIO/Z MAGAZINE/SOUTH END PRESS may have a
vested economic interest in attempting to marginalize anti-war
journalists involved in 9/11 conspiracy research and journalism.

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