Baltimore’s New Nonprofit Outlet Looks a Lot Like the Same Old Corporate News

JUSTINE BARRON

The Baltimore Banner, an online news outlet, broke a story in November (11/2/23) about a man’s death being ruled a homicide due to “trauma to the body.” The man, Paul Bertonazzi, had been transported by Baltimore Police to Johns Hopkins psychiatric hospital, where he died five days later. The death occurred in January 2023, but the ruling had just been determined.

The original version of the story was short on details, with information vaguely sourced to “Baltimore Police.” It described the man (initially unidentified) as “combative” and self-harming. A second article (11/3/23) on the evolving story was published the next day with more information, including that the man’s spine had been severed at some point. That article includes quotes from a police report.

Baltimore Banner (11/2/23)

Despite limited information, the Banner’s articles prematurely exonerate the police in Bertonazzi’s death, taking the police’s own account of his behavior and the officers’ actions at face value while focusing blame on the hospital.

It is perhaps not surprising that Baltimore media published a police-friendly story relying on partial and questionable information, sourced to the police themselves. As I previously wrote about for FAIR (9/22/23), the Baltimore Sun and other news outlets played a major role in perpetuating false stories about what happened to Freddie Gray by uncritically repeating Baltimore Police claims.

Yet unlike the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Banner is not a corporate news outlet. It is a nonprofit news outlet that was introduced in 2022 as a promised corrective to the Sun’s habits of reporting. Since its founding, the Banner has stirred up controversy on social media for actions, statements and stories that seemingly perpetuate the worst habits of its corporate news competitor, including “police say” journalism.

In the Bertonazzi case, despite a lack of evidence, the Banner repeatedly concluded that he must have been killed by violence while a patient at the hospital. The second story ended with some background on “serious events” happening in Maryland hospitals. A followup story (11/9/23) was even more emphatic: “Violence at Maryland Hospitals Was a Concern Before a Death at Hopkins Was Ruled a Homicide,” the headline stated.

At the same time, the Banner gave space for the police to seemingly implicate Bertonazzi himself and/or his pre-existing injury in his death. The second article (11/3/23) cited a police report claiming Bertonazzi “said his neck hurt,” and was “hitting his head against the inside of the van” while in the midst of a “behavioral crisis” during his arrest.

Red flags from Freddie Gray case

Baltimore Banner (11/3/23)

For long-time observers of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), these claims struck a familiar chord: Police said the exact same things about Freddie Gray, who was fatally injured in BPD police custody in 2015, including that he was banging his head in the van (Washington Post, 4/29/15). This turned out to be a false story, part of an effort to cover up brutal deadly force (and not the first time BPD has used that story). The Banner articles are filled with red flags that echo back to the Gray case, including that Bertonazzi was transported to the hospital in a police van instead of an ambulance, despite reports of serious medical and psychiatric symptoms.

Any number of things could have happened to cause Bertonazzi’s fatal injury, involving any number of parties and/or his preexisting condition. The details offered by the Banner belie its rhetorical effort to shift attention away from the police and onto the hospital. According to “medical staff,” he became immediately immobile upon entry, when he was transferred from the wheelchair to a board.

The Banner (11/3/23) released partial body camera footage showing Bertonazzi crying “help” and “you’re hurting me” before he was wheeled into the hospital, while police unsuccessfully commanded him to stand up. The news outlet describes the video as showing him “moving, talking” to explain why BPD exonerated the officers, as if that alone proves that his spine wasn’t damaged yet (another echo to the Gray case, in which police dismissed video of him crying out  in pain during his arrest).

A nonprofit business model 

Lenfest Institute

The Baltimore Banner provides a case study in whether a shift to a nonprofit business model in newsrooms is enough to transform journalism. The news outlet was launched in 2022 in the midst of intensive public support for an alternative to the Baltimore Sun, which had been the only big game in town for decades.

In 2021, an investment firm, Alden Capital Group, was poised to purchase the Baltimore Sun’s owner, Tribune Publishing. A Vanity Fair article (4/5/21) about the takeover referred to Alden Capital as a “blood-sucking hedge fund.” A group called “Save Our Sun,” made up of Sun staffers and prominent locals, was hoping to beat Alden’s offer and transform the Sun into a nonprofit newspaper.

Another party interested in buying the Sun was Stewart Bainum, Jr., the CEO of Choice Hotels, the nursing home chain Manor Home Inc. and other corporations he inherited from his father. Bainum has also served as a Democrat in the Maryland General Assembly. He was framed as the possible “savior” of Baltimore media (Washington Post, 2/17/21, 10/26/21; New York Times, 2/17/21) and won the support of the “Save Our Sun” team.

After losing his bid to Alden Capital, Bainum launched the Baltimore Banner as a separate nonprofit news outlet (known as the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, its parent organization, on tax documents). Bainum pledged $50 million over three and a half years. The Banner’s nonprofit status bought it an enormous amount of good will, with glowing articles months in advance of its launch.

The Baltimore Banner website launched in June 2022. In many ways, it was hard to distinguish from its corporate competitor. For one, most of its articles were behind a paywall. (Both the Banner and Sun charge about $20/month after an introductory period.) Many other nonprofit news outlets with similar multi-million budgets, like the Texas Tribune or ProPublica, offer their content for free.

In developing its business model, the Banner consulted with the Lenfest Institute, a nonprofit organization that runs the Philadelphia Inquirer, which does charge for subscriptions (Washington Post, 10/26/21). The Inquirer was often described as a model for the Banner. Yet, unlike the Banner, the Inquirer is a for-profit limited liability corporation owned by a nonprofit. There are very few nonprofit news outlets comparable to the Banner that make readers pay for news.

Ties to the corporate world

The Baltimore Banner‘s “About Us” page promises “to be an indispensable resource that strengthens, unites and inspires our Baltimore community…through trustworthy, quality journalism that tells the varied stories of our people.”

One issue might be the lack of nonprofit leadership experience at the Banner. The news outlet didn’t have a board of directors until about six months after it launched. With two exceptions (including Bainum’s wife, an actor), the Banner’s executive team and board of directors are composed of people from the corporate world, including corporate media.

So are most of its reporters. The Banner’s first prominent hires came from the Baltimore Sun, including its managing editors and numerous reporters. Although the Banner’s newsroom is more diverse than at the Sun, with an editorial staff that is about 27% people of color, the city has a roughly 70% non-white population. Meanwhile, the crime, politics and “enterprise” (investigations) desks are still overwhelmingly staffed with white reporters. (This data doesn’t include the “Banner Bot,” an AI function that pens a regular column on real estate and has no race.)

While the Banner’s subscription prices caused some online stir, the outlet also drew attention for its relationships with local corporations. The Baltimore Brew (6/9/23) reported that the Banner was getting a discount on rent from a major real estate development company.

The Banner also ran ads from Atlas Restaurant Group, a mammoth company owned by Alexander Smith, whose family owns the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Atlas has faced controversy for policies that restrict service based on racist and arbitrarily enforced dress codes. Atlas also catered the Banner’s launch event, and the Banner has continued to hold events at Atlas Restaurants, while giving the company significant uncritical press (e.g., 7/11/23, 10/2/23, 10/18/23).

The early marketing for the Banner emphasized its mission “to be an indispensable resource that strengthens, unites and inspires our Baltimore community.” Despite millions from Bainum, discounted rent and an income stream from ads, the community has had to pay for access.

Nonprofit news outlets can operate legally in a number of different ways, but the Baltimore Banner‘s chosen business model cost it much of its nonprofit sheen.

Controversial hires

Within its first few months as a news outlet, the Baltimore Banner also made a number of editorial choices that alienated local readers who were hopeful for a real alternative to corporate news.

When editor-in-chief Kimi Yoshino (who previously worked for the Los Angeles Times) proudly announced the hiring of former Baltimore Sun and ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis as editor-at-large (Twitter, 6/1/22), she faced immediate backlash. Many people reminded her that MacGillis had spent the previous two years minimizing the Covid pandemic and mocking Covid precautions. He was an extremist voice on the topic, comparing school closures to both South Africa’s apartheid and the Iraq War.

Twitter (12/24/20)

Locals also reminded Yoshino that MacGillis had been, up until his hiring, retweeting prominent anti-trans activists who expressed concern about gender nonconformity. Yoshino didn’t respond to the criticism, and MacGillis was brought on board.

Baltimore Banner (9/20/22)

Then, in September 2022, the Banner published an op-ed (9/20/22) from a man named Brian Griffiths, a “conservative activist,” according to his bio. He argued that government buildings shouldn’t fly pride flags: “You may see the transgender pride flag as a symbol of tolerance and acceptance,” he wrote. “I see it as a flag that denies the basic facts of biology and sex assigned at birth.” There was enormous outcry, with many people promising to cancel their subscriptions. Even several Banner reporters spoke out against the op-ed.

Yoshino published a written response (9/22/22), an “apology from the editor.” After expressing regret for causing harm, she defended her choices. She described Griffiths’ piece as “carefully edited” and reviewed by LGBTQ staffers. She insisted the Banner had a responsibility to share a “range of viewpoints.” Griffiths, she acknowledged, was hired to write a column from a conservative perspective.

At the time, the Banner had published only 14 of what it called “community voices,” and Griffiths had written four of those. None of the other op-ed writers had been published twice. He was the Banner’s first columnist, it seemed.

Yoshino’s response to the Griffiths outcry was her second public apology of sorts. She had apologized earlier in the year when the Banner published an op-ed (6/1/22), which is still online, that casually used the phrase “Jewtown” to describe a predominantly Jewish neighborhood.

After the Griffiths debacle, Yoshino announced the hiring of a public editor, DeWayne Wickham, a former opinion writer for USA Today and founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists, who wrote a regular column for the Banner over the next year. His columns occasionally commented on the Banner’s work, but mostly covered the media in general. At one point, Wickham (12/31/22) did come down on the Banner for a claim he felt wasn’t substantiated. That criticism was tucked into a mostly positive review of the outlet’s work to date. His next article (1/2/23) was an apology for criticizing his colleagues. (Wickham left the Banner in August 2023 and hasn’t been replaced.)

More recently, the Banner has seemed to temper its approach, no longer publishing Griffiths, for one. It hasn’t entirely backed away from inflammatory content, though. On November 17, 2023, its Twitter account posted a tweet that seemed to encapsulate the tension between its pursuit of a “range of viewpoints” and its civic-minded, nonprofit branding:

Twitter (11/17/23)

The Banner offered free access to this “health story,” which was a letter justifying opposition to vaccination. (The tweet has since been deleted, but the letter is still online.)

Accountability issues

Baltimore Banner (8/27/22)

In its “Code of Conduct,” the Banner promises, “When we make a mistake, we are humble, admit our error and correct it,” and “if we ever stray from [our promises], readers should call us out and demand that we make amends.” Accountability and transparency remain ongoing issues for the outlet, as illustrated by the Banner‘s failure to “make amends” when it published a story that turned out to be unsubstantiated.

In August 2022, the Banner (8/27/22) reported that a Hollywood television production was shut down in Baltimore because drug dealers “threatened to shoot someone” and “attempted to extort $50,000 from the crew to stand down.” According to the Banner, “producers declined to pay.” The only source for the article was a Baltimore Police spokesperson.

The story was picked up by national news and entertainment press (e.g., Deadline, 8/28/22; LA Times, 8/28/22). It fostered the common perception that Baltimore is overrun by criminality and an unsafe place to mount a production.

Twitter (8/28/22)

When Baltimore locals expressed doubts about the story on Twitter, one of its reporters, Justin Fenton, insisted that it was true. “It did happen,” he said to a skeptical commentator.

A few days later, the Banner (8/30/22) reported that it probably didn’t happen: “Police Scale Back Accusations Related to Alleged Threat on Set of ‘Lady in the Lake,’” the headline stated. Police had investigated the initial claim and it didn’t hold up. The chief BPD spokesperson described the first article as “preliminary information.”

The Banner published this second story as if it were passively updating the original story, with no mea culpa for its role in running with the initial account prematurely.  Fenton quietly deleted his tweets that had asserted that the incident “did happen.”

Issues with accountability and transparency are present in Fenton’s more recent articles on Bertonazzi, the man who died in Johns Hopkins Hospital. Certain claims are attributed to unidentified “police,” even though the Banner’s Code of Ethics insists that anonymous sources will be avoided:

When using information from an anonymous source, we include a reason why the source needs their name withheld…. Always, but especially in stories about politics or government, we examine requests for anonymity for possible ulterior motives.

The Code of Ethics also calls for transparency and specificity around corrections, but both Bertonazzi stories were updated many times without the specific updates noted, an ethical practice in journalism that shows readers how a story develops. What’s lost to the public is how the news outlet shaped its stories over time to support the police’s claims.

The Banner does deserve credit for some critical work that would likely not have appeared in the Baltimore Sun, including a series on healthcare in Maryland prisons and coverage for Baltimore’s large and growing immigrant population. But it hasn’t let go of the corporate media habit of publishing stories on policing sourced largely or exclusively by police (e.g., 11/7/23). It’s a particularly corrosive habit when the police are killers or suspects.

Competing for dollars 

Baltimore Banner (6/16/23)

On April 21, 2022, Former President Barack Obama mentioned the “encouraging trend” of nonprofit newsrooms popping up across the country, citing Baltimore in a list of cities. By itself, “nonprofit” is a neutral term, a business model. There are countless nonprofits dedicated to ending the rights of women to have abortions. Religious groups like Scientology are 501(c)3 nonprofits known to commit harm.

The Banner’s own former public editor (6/16/23) acknowledged that the news outlet had a long way to go to look different from corporate news: “At other times it looked a lot like the city’s traditional news organizations—which is to say it hasn’t always looked like something new and different in its first year,” Wickham wrote in a year-in-review:

Of course, that’s to be expected. Most of its reporters and editors came from—and honed their journalism in—the old-school newsrooms that the Banner is trying not to duplicate.

In an article in the Conversation (1/17/19), Bill Birnbauer writes about the “huge disparity” between large and successful nonprofit news outlets, established by “wealthy individual donors” providing “venture-like capital,” and smaller outlets which comprise the vast majority of nonprofit newsrooms and rely on fickle private funding.

There is a downside to an institution like the Baltimore Banner operating as a nonprofit, especially when its approach to the news has been so variable. There is only so much private charitable money available in the city.

The Baltimore Brew, a small news outlet, has long been on top of financial corruption in the city, breaking the story (7/16/20) that led to former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s recent federal conviction. The Baltimore Beat is Black-led and publishes a regular column on injustice in the courts. The Beat also publishes a monthly free print version, which is beneficial in a city that has many residents without internet access.

These and other independent Baltimore outlets will compete for funding with a nonprofit news site that is supported by a very wealthy businessman, has a revenue-driven business model, and was marketed aggressively as the savior of Baltimore media.

This article originally appeared in FAIR.org on December 21st, 2023.  

See Related Posts

The Baltimore Sun’s Reckoning on Freddie Gray, FAIR

New Right-Wing Owner to Baltimore Sun Reporters: 'Go Make Me Some Money, Common Dreams

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New Right-Wing Owner to Baltimore Sun Reporters: 'Go Make Me Some Money'

By Brett Wilkins

"The Sinclair TV owner bought The Baltimore Sun for the same reason Elon Musk bought Twitter," opined one critic. "Power."

New Baltimore Sun owner and right-wing media executive David D. Smith raised eyebrows and ire in media circles and beyond following a Tuesday meeting at which he reportedly insulted journalists at his new acquisition and told them to focus on profit.

Smith, the multimillionaire head of the Sinclair Broadcasts Group—a network notorious for its fealty to former U.S. President Donald Trump—purchased the Sun, along with a bevy of other Maryland papers, last week for what The New Republic described as an "unspecified, nine-figure" amount from Alden Global Capital, an hedge fund known for its cost-cutting ways.

Sinclair started out in Baltimore and the Sun reported that it's the first time in nearly four decades that the paper will be locally owned. 

However, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik told "All Things Considered" host Juana Summers that Sun staffers left the meeting with Smith "fairly on edge."

Smith "said he's only read [the Sun] about four times, which is kind of astonishing for a guy whose family has been there for more than a half-century," Folkenflik said, adding that the new owner also argued that the paper "just isn't offering people news that is holding local government actors accountable."

"This," Folkenflik added, "for a newspaper that, you know, revealed corruption by the then-mayor of Baltimore that led to the Sun winning a Pulitzer just a few short years ago."

The once-venerable Sun has, in fact, won 16 Pulitzer Prizes over its storied history.

Folkenflik, who once worked for the Sun, noted:

It has a really proud heritage going back to 1837. The story of the Sun, nonetheless, is kind of the story of modern American newspapering. Alden is the latest in a string of big corporate owners that has, you know, time after time, decade after decade, whittled down or slashed its staffs and its ambitions. The paper has shrunk pretty sharply.

Media accountability advocates expressed alarm and concern over Smith's purchase of the Sun. Popular Information publisher Judd Legum noted that the paper's new owner is a donor to far-right groups including Project Veritas, Turning Point USA, and Moms for Liberty.

"Sinclair Broadcasting, which is controlled by the Smith family, forces nearly 200 local TV affiliates to run right-wing pro-Trump political commentary," Legum said. "Sinclair affiliates have also promoted right-wing conspiracy theories, including claims that [Democratic National Committee] staffer Seth Rich was murdered by a hitman as payback for sharing sensitive emails to WikiLeaks."

Sinclair and Smith have been closely aligned with the Trump family. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has admitted that the former president and 2024 GOP front-runner's campaign struck a deal with Sinclair in 2016 for access in exchange for more favorable coverage.

"We are here to deliver your message," Smith told the Trump campaign. "Period."

Smith is also openly inimical toward the mainstream media—including the Sun. According toThe Baltimore Banner, he told New York Magazine in 2018 that he viewed print media to be "so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble."

Pressed during Tuesday's meeting whether he still believed this, Smith answered in the affirmative. Asked if that included the paper he just bought, he replied, "in many ways, yes."

Sun staffers present at Tuesday's meeting told Folkenflik that their new boss seemed especially focused on the paper's bottom line.

"Smith told his new staffers that, you know, the Sun was profitable but that he meant to make it more profitable," Folkenflik told Summers.

According to the Banner, he told them to "go make me some money."

This article originally appeared in Common Dreams on January 17th, 2024  

Read the posts below related to this topic

The Baltimore Sun’s Reckoning on Freddie Gray, FAIR

Baltimore’s New Nonprofit Outlet Looks a Lot Like the Same Old Corporate News, FAIR

Please support the news you can use and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website, for more news and share our posts! 

And read my brief bio about my writing life 

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MLK's Radical Revolution of Values Needed to Heal U.S.

Open and avowed white supremacists operate in the government, engaging in whites-only policies based on a false racist theory of white genocide.

DAVID A. LOVE

This month marks the 90th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr the iconic American civil rights and human rights leader who forced America to live up to its rhetorical ideals of freedom, democracy and equality. For his efforts, he was assassinated in 1968.

The fallen Nobel laureate and “drum major for justice” - vilified, ostracised and loathed in life, monitored and hunted by the government - was honoured posthumously with a federal holiday in the United States. Yet, as that holiday has been diluted and repositioned into a national day of service, and Dr King’s character has been neutered and rendered a passive, innocuous and idealistic dreamer who gave rousing speeches, Americans have lost sight of the man’s revolutionary philosophy.

Five decades ago, Martin Luther King warned of America’s triple evils: racism, economic exploitation and militarism. These evils continue to plague the country to this day, necessitating the radical restructuring of society the black leader so urgently promoted.

“I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values,” King said in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech. “We must rapidly begin … the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Racism, the original American sin born from the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of indigenous peoples, has not abated. 

Racism, the original American sin born from the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of indigenous peoples, has not abated. In his 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech, King said as black people were concerned, the US had failed to honour its promises written in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. “Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’. But we refuse to believe that bank of justice is bankrupt,” he said.

Today, the US has yet to address reparations to African Americans to repair the damage of enslavement and the continuing legacy of institutional racism, including both de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination.

Open and avowed white supremacists operate in the government, engaging in whites-only policies based on a false racist theory of white genocide, with an immigration policy of ethnic cleansing, separation of migrant families and imprisonment of 15,000 children - all designed to keep whites in the majority. Meanwhile, white supremacist hate groups are thriving in the streets, with a sharp increase in hate crimes and school bullying in the era of Trump.

The US is a “flawed democracy” according to the Economist’s 2018 Democracy index, ranking only 25th globally in terms of political participation and culture, governmental functions, electoral process, civil liberties and pluralism. In states such as Georgia and North Carolina, white conservatives of the Republican Party employ segregation-era voter suppression tactics against people of colour and the poor, including restrictive and unjust voter ID laws, voter purges, rigged elections and votes stolen, and gerrymandered legislative districts.

Despite professing to be the self-proclaimed “land of opportunity”, the US maintains a predatory capitalist system with pathological levels of economic inequality. In a land of abundance, only a handful enjoy its wealth. With 40 million people in poverty, the US is the most unequal advanced nation, with the least social and economic mobility in the developed world. The US profits from misery through private prisons, and a for-profit healthcare system that forces people to go bankrupt and into poverty while paying for medical bills.

The wealthiest one percent owns 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the top 10 percent controls 77 percent of the wealth. While working Americans are drowning in nearly $1.5 trillion student loan debt they are unable to pay off. And as conservatives shake their heads and proclaim nothing can be done, the nation engages in policies of plunder of poor and working people, such as a $1.5 trillion tax cut almost entirely for the benefit of the top one percent.

Meanwhile, Trump forces a government shutdown over his vanity border wall that leaves 800,000 federal workers without pay, and he advises furloughed workers to make adjustments and, barter with their landlords and hire an attorney.

A culture of corruption precludes the US from solving its problems. Politicians are beholden to moneyed interests rather than held accountable to the public, a Harvard Business School report suggests. Laws promoting gun proliferation, environmental degradation and “loyalty oaths” to other nations reflect the largesse bestowed upon these politicians by lobbyists who seek to enact them.

Martin Luther King, aware of the connections between injustice at home and abroad, spoke out against US proclivity for war. “As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems,” King said. “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”

Today, the US meddles in the affairs of other nations, waging drone wars and killing hundreds of  thousands of innocent civilians in the name of the “war on terror”, assassinating people and engaging in regime change. Decades of US intervention in Central America caused skyrocketing levels of corruption and violence that fuelled a migrant crisis.

Meanwhile, King predicted “spiritual doom” for an America that continues to spend more on war than on social uplift. Today, a nation which claims it must cut social welfare spending and cannot afford free universal healthcare or college spends trillions of dollars on defence - 37 percent of world military spending and more than the next seven highest spenders combined - and yet cannot account for how the military allocates that money.

Rather than heed his message, America killed King, the messenger. Then, it watered down his message to render it more palatable and digestible to the “white moderate” who is “more devoted to order than to justice”, and prefers that we wait for a “more convenient season” for freedom rather than take direct action now. If America hopes to redeem itself, it must change now. 

This article originally appeared at LAProgressive.org on January 15th, 2024.  

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Chief financiers remain at large following the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol

Those who faced harsh consequences for storming the Capitol were not the ones that bankrolled the events of January 6

by Natalia Marques

Three years ago, a right-wing mob stormed the United States capitol building as the 2020 presidential election results were being certified. The attempt was of course unsuccessful, and Joe Biden was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2021.

Three years later and after 1,240 arrests, 170 convictions, 210 guilty pleas to felony offenses, 720 sentences, the longest being 22 years for Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right organization the Proud Boys, it seems as if there has been some retribution for a brazen attempt to install a candidate by violent means that the majority of people in the US did not want to see in the presidency.

The fact is, however, that January 6 was not a populist uprising, although many of the participants were indeed working class people swept up in the fervor of the moment. At multiple levels, January 6 was an operation financed and led by establishment political figures and ultra-wealthy donors.

Trump laid the groundwork

Since the November 2020 Presidential election, Trump had been fomenting the idea that the election was somehow rigged and “stolen” from him, and that he was the true victor. It was around Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rallying cry that the mob formed on January 6 and stormed the US Capitol, where the results were being certified. And following the rally, which took place at the Ellipse park near the White House. Trump himself explicitly directed the crowd to the US Capitol, where police had set up barricades in anticipation of a disruption of election certification proceedings.

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong,” Trump said at the Ellipse.

The financiers of January 6

Beyond political direction, rich and powerful figures provided explicit financial support to the events of January 6. Members of the former President’s inner circle bragged about fundraising millions for the rally. Publix heiress Julie Fancelli, who has donated millions to right-wing political causes including Trump’s 2020 campaign, offered as much as USD 3 million to finance the January 6 rally that preceded the insurrection. Prominent mainstream right-wing organizations such as Turning Point USA and the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) also backed the rally, providing buses, making mass calls, and funneling money to speakers. “This historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history,” wrote Turning Point leader Charlie Kirk about the rally, in a tweet. “The team at @TrumpStudents & Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.” This tweet has since been deleted.

These groups are not considered fringe. TPUSA donors include the foundation of notable right-wing donor Bernie Marcus, the founder of Home Depot, and the Koch Brothers. The Republican Attorneys General Association boasts a variety of corporate donors, including Amazon, Walmart, Visa, Capital One, MasterCard, Walgreens, General Motors, Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase’s Political Action Committee (PAC), which all have resumed donations to RAGA despite the organization’s embrace of the conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen.

Those who faced material consequences for storming the Capitol, however, did not represent this wealthy donor class. Out of those arrested, 60% had experienced financial problems over the previous 20 years. 18% had experienced bankruptcy in the past (double the rate of the general public), 20% had eviction or foreclosure proceedings, and 25% had been sued by a creditor for not paying money owed.

And while the mob of people who were arrested for participating in the events of January 6 were not necessarily from the most oppressed sectors of the United States—40% were business owners or white collar workers, and 90% were white—these people are a far cry from the level of wealth and power of the backers of the “Stop the Steal” rally.

However, there were several major right-wing groups, some who practice or promote political violence, who were key players on the ground. The leaders of the Oath Keepers militia and the Proud Boys received the heaviest charges. Armed militia groups including the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters brought weaponry. Openly neo-Nazi organizations such as the Nationalist Social Club-131 also participated. Due to the heavy presence of right-wing groups and sympathizers, January 6, 2021 was the first time a Confederate battle flag was displayed inside the US Capitol.

Trump is facing limited consequences for his role in the January 6 riots, due to lawsuits in Maine and Colorado, it is possible that Trump’s name will no longer be on the Republican primary ballot due to his attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election. The Supreme Court has agreed to review Colorado’s decision in February. Colorado used a part of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, designed to keep former Confederate rebels out of Congress, to keep Trump off the ballot. The Supreme court decision is bound to have national implications, as similar challenges to Trump’s ballot are pending in several states.

Although the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack recommended criminal charges against Trump for obstructing certification proceedings, the Select Committee does not actually have the authority to enforce this recommendation.

Trump, his inner circle, and top January 6 backers and donors remain at large—meaning those that funded and directed the events of January 6 are not being held accountable for the near overthrow of a popular election.

This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch on January 6th, 2024.  

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"Details of the money behind Jan. 6 protests continue to emerge," OpenSecrets

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South Africa Initiates Case Against Israel at International Court of Justice

By Julia Conley

The African country, one journalist noted, "fought for its own liberation against an apartheid regime supported for decades by the U.S."

"No one knows apartheid like those who fought it before," said one Palestinian rights advocate on Friday in response to the news that South Africa has taken a "historic" new step to hold Israel accountable for its relentless bombardment and violent yearslong occupation of Gaza—calling on the International Court of Justice to declare that Israel has breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in South Africa said it is "gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants" and called on the ICJ to take action to force Israel to "immediately cease" its current attacks on Gaza's 2.3 million residents.

The motion was filed as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 21,500 people and tens of thousands of displaced residents fled an Israeli ground offensive, as airstrikes continued in southern Gaza.

Noting that South Africa has consistently condemned all attacks on civilians, including the assault by Hamas on southern Israel on October7, the country's representatives at hte ICJ said Israel's bombardment of Gaza is "genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and [ethnic] group."

"The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction," reads the application filed at the ICJ.

South Africa took its latest action regarding Israel less than two weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the government had submitted documents to the International Criminal Court (ICC) supporting its demand, made in November with several other countries, that the court investigate Israel for war crimes.

While the ICC prosecutes individuals and governments for committing war crimes, the ICJ operates under the United Nations to rule on disputes between countries. The ICJ's orders are binding for Israel, as the country is a U.N. member state.

South Africa has joined international human rights experts—including the U.N.'s top expert on human rights in occupied Palestine—in saying Israel's blockade of Gaza and violent treatment of those in the enclave and the West Bank is a form of apartheid, comparing Israeli policies to the racial segregation that was imposed for nearly five decades by the white minority that controlled South Africa.

Last month, the government voted to suspend diplomatic ties with Israel until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government agrees to a permanent humanitarian cease-fire.

"South Africa has continuously called for an immediate and permanent cease-fire and the resumption of talks that will end the violence arising from the continued belligerent occupation of Palestine," the government said Friday.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill was among those who recognized the significance of South Africa's application at the ICJ, noting that the country "fought for its own liberation against an apartheid regime supported for decades by the U.S.," which is backing Israel's assault on Gaza despite international outcry and protests within the United States.

"The U.N. Genocide Convention must be upheld. Israel must be held accountable," said former U.N. human rights official Craig Mokhiber, who resigned from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in October in protest of the U.N.'s failure to stop Israel's massacre of civilians. "International law must be preserved."

At the ICJ, South Africa called for an expedited hearing on Israel's actions and asked the court to indicate provisional measures under the Genocide Convention to "protect against further, severe, and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people."

Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948, states that genocide includes acts committed with the "intent to destroy, either in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group."

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, pointed out Friday that "the three leading Israeli officials have declared the intent" to wipe out Gaza's population.

Bishara noted that Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in October that all civilians in Gaza are "responsible" for Hamas' attack on southern Israel, days after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military would collectively punish the enclave's population, who he called "human animals."

Netanyahu also said this week that so-called "voluntary migration" of Gaza residents is the ultimate objective of Israel's assault.

On Friday, the spokesperson for Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Lior Haiat, dismissed South Africa's motion as "baseless" and a "despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the court."

Despite top officials' recent statements, Haiat said the government has "made it clear that the residents of the Gaza Strip are not the enemy."

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, called South Africa's move "a vital step to propel greater support for impartial justice." 

This article originally appeared in Common Dreams on December 29th, 2023.  

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'No One Is Spared': South Africa Presents Genocide Case Against Israel at ICJ, Common Dreams

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