The Associated Press is Brought to You by Big Pharma

Eli Lilly, one of the most powerful Big Pharma Corporations on earth, is underwriting the reporting for the Associated Press (AP) through the Lilly Endowment. While the AP admits that the Lilly Endowment is the most prominent backer of its democracy journalism initiative, they fail to share specific funding amounts.

Nevertheless, the AP has two Disinfo Dupe reporters named Michelle R. Smith and Ali Swenson who are apparently funded by this endowment and have specialized in attacking Robert F. Kennedy Jr and supposed “misinformation” posted on the internet and related to elections. Apparently fighting misinformation to Smith and Swenson means making spurious claims to discredit Kennedy’s entire campaign rather than trying to understand his strong support. Meanwhile, much of the so-called internet misinformation campaign has been supposedly debunking questions and claims about COVID that refuse to echo the talking points of Big Pharma companies like Eli Lilly.

What a coincidence, huh?

How is it possible that a “reputable and unbiased” newswire like AP would attack Big Pharma’s #1 enemy, Kennedy, while taking money from Big Pharma? All while hiding under the label of “combatting misinformation” rather than admitting such evident conflicts of interest.

According to biographies on the AP website, Swenson reports on “election-related misinformation, disinformation and extremism for The Associated Press,” while Smith is part of the global investigations team.

While the term misinformation is notoriously vague, independent journalist Matt Taibbi explained in the Twitter Files that media accusations of “misinformation” are often a prelude to both direct and indirect censorship from the government. Disinformation is supposedly government-endorsed propaganda intended to mislead people and take down rivals, yet Swenson seems to view it as information that challenges the official narratives of Big Government and its corporate allies, like Eli Lilly. “Extremism” is an even more subjective term, but it seems to represent independent voices such as an Indiana doctor who somehow became the subject of an AP takedown piece by Swenson for giving a six-minute speech to a “a small community school board meeting.”

The AP does add vague disclaimers to these articles, such as stating that they “work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online” on the Indiana doctor piece, and that they “receive support from several private foundations to enhance [their] explanatory coverage of elections and democracy” on the Kennedy piece. Yet nowhere do they specify the obvious conflict of interest of who these funds are coming from, which is for-profit companies with evident corporate agendas like Eli Lilly. It turns out that America’s Associated Press is now brought to you by Big Pharma.