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Spent more time than I should have on this thread. They really ask for $5 donations so they can spend less of their $1.66b fund(a fund specifically there to use for the same cause they want your $5 for). imo irl, they actually just want grassroots funded appearance. Almost funny.

So even if you supported their politics have to think “well I agree with their message, now is important time to support the cause, so why not use one of the 16 sets of $100m they have hoarded to support media now instead of just my $5 for that?”. Just so brazen it’s disgusting.

Not even worth talking about the left or right angles of anything, because even if you agree with their political bias, you can see clearly how using a message of urgent need for funds with they are owned by a company(dedicated to funding the paper) with yearly surpluses.

And I didn’t even try to touch on the fact it’s a UK business owned by another UK business focused on influencing American politics. If they were in urgent fear of impending doom to the extent $5 would make an urgent difference, why don’t they free up $250m for the paper? Exactly.

If anyone read this I hope you see the shade of the umbrella. Aint that some shit smh. Having $50m surplus(COUNTING Scott Ltd) AND STILL fear mongering old folks out of $5 a month bc they think the Guardian in urgent need like a PBS or NPR when irl they’re set for 1000 years.

If the Guardian is only running at a £21m loss a year, their umbrella corp, meant to just subsidize the Guardian perpetually, would *only* have a $50m surplus each year(and take them a full 7-10 years to make another half a billion dollars while subsidizing the newspaper).

If they were in profit, then wouldn’t have a believable (on the surface) reason to pretend like NPR, or PBS, or Wikipedia and do fundraisers that make them look like they’re grass roots funded independent journalists. Also, the profit all in in bonds would be $80m a year, so.

£23.3b is 8.8% of £264.4b. Just over 4% more revenue and just under 4% less expenses would put them in profit. BUT, if they were in profit, they’d be no way they can create an American non-profit to begin with readers for $5 a month to subsidize as $1.66b hedge fund.

But, the topic I didn’t cover yet, the “struggling” newspapers paying a bulk their 1,100+ employees six figures - yes, they have had losses in past years. Though let’s look at that. £264m revenue, £21m losses(a write off for Scott Trust Ltd btw). Less than 10% difference.

So, if they can get you to donate, they can use less of the Scott Fund the guardian, and keep it in the investments. Their fund made 6.6% avg yield with 20% peak. With over a $1b and growth, Guardian is funded for 1000 years easily, they don’t need $5 from you.

the thing is, that fund can and does just allocate a lot of money into private investment and privately held hedge funds that do have shareholders and dividends. So doesn’t really matter if the Scott Fund has no dividends, as they can put the money in other for profit businesses.

Really if anything besides perception, the $5 a month donations just allow them to keep more of the money in the hedge fund - in the hedge fund. While the Scott Fund itself has no dividends(the GMG board still get paid a handsome salary don’t worry), and retains or uses earnings.

$1.66b in just gov bonds would generate $80m a year, and they simply don’t instantly reinvest all the profits into the guardian newspaper, obviously as their holdings grew by £100m in a few years(while asking you for donations to offset their own costs).

Not only does a lot of their funding come from the most powerful people who are heads of some of the largest multinational corporations - who are some of the most active in political lobbying government, their umbrella company already has their funding covered in perpetuity.

The biggest bold faced lie is that in their plea for $5 a month claims it is their goal to fund “independent journalism in perpetuity”. The Guardian is the anti-thesis of independent journalism (I do enjoy some of their a-political articles, but that’s not the point).

The truth of the matter is, what it boils down to, is 2 things. Remember those rich donors? They’re political lobbyists. Their political message is more convincing if they can create the impression of a struggling newspaper powered by grassroots supports. That’s the main thing.

First off a few things. One, the newspaper highest paid position earns about $850k USD per year, so they aren’t struggling too bad, the bulk of their 1,100 employees earn between $100k and $250k per year. So yes, they are asking for donations for six figure white collar workers.

This way, their website ad revenue isn’t included in the GMG UK for-profit business entity which owns the newspaper, and they can pay much of their journalists who create content also syndicated in the for profit newspaper through the nonprofit. Though let’s get to the deception.

The nonprofit branch in US, basically just a tax exempt shell corp for their website, just publishes content syndicated from their for profit news paper, and can use whatever tax free revenue (including ad revenue from the site) to pay their journalists through the nonprofit.

Scott Trust reinvests into Guardian(pledged to do that indefinitely so 0 urgent need). £600m of their £1.24b came from the sale of AutoTrader magazine in 2014. The U.S. nonprofit was created in 2017 to accept political donations from Bill & Melinda Gates, Ford, Rockerfellers.