Don Hazen's Sleaze

Don Hazen's Sleaze

THE INDEPENDENT MEDIA Institute, the San Francisco-based group that runs a news syndication service for the alternative press, has become embroiled in yet another serious ethical conflict that demonstrates the fundamental problems with foundation funding of media and political groups.

IMI operates Alternet, an online wire service that distributes stories to alternative newspapers all over the country. It started out as a simple, relatively small-scale operation created by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a national trade group. Alternet picked up the best stories from the alternative press and resold them to other papers.

But some 10 years ago, Don Hazen became executive director of IMI (which back then was called the Institute for Alternative Journalism), and he quickly began moving to turn the outfit into his own personal fiefdom. Gone was much of any interest in serving the alternative press, particularly the small, struggling independent papers. Instead Hazen began looking for ways to get foundation funding to expand the size of his operation. He began looking for programs that the donors would fund.

The problem, of course, is that an organization that is heavily dependent on foundation funding has to tailor its agenda to meet the interests of the funders (see "Pulling Strings," 10/8/97). And indeed, Alternet soon stopped running stories that might offend the folks with the money.

For example, he blacked out all of our reports on the privatization of the Presidio – at the same time as he was soliciting grants from the Tides Foundation, which had just gotten a sweetheart lease at the Presidio. Tides was also getting money from the Energy Foundation, which was pushing energy deregulation – another story Hazen wouldn't properly cover.

The worst problem: Hazen kept all of this information secret. He wouldn't make public the source or amount of his funding and refused to reveal what conditions were attached to his foundation grants.

That policy has just created a new firestorm in alternative media circles. Al Giordano, who runs an independent Web site called Narco News (http://www.narconews.com) that reports on drug policy, released an in-depth investigative report last week revealing, among other things, that Hazen had a special, secret arrangement with a private donor to pay IMI a "bounty" on every drug-policy story that Alternet placed in a publication. In other words, Hazen was pushing stories about a certain topic because he was getting extra cash for it. And – in what could prove to be a serious embarrassment to newspapers that regularly use Alternet stories – he never disclosed that those stories were in part underwritten by a private donor.

That violates a basic ethical standard that almost every major publication follows: When there's outside funding for a story, you disclose it. In this case, Giordano wrote, Alternet "compromised the ethics of its subscribing newspapers. It denied them the knowledge they needed to make their own full disclosure. This is an example of how Alternet tangles other parties in its web of deceit."

To make matters worse, Alternet pays writers half of the money it gets from selling their stories – but as far as Girodano could tell, none of the "bounty money" has made its way back to the writers.

Giordano has sent Hazen a list of 10 key questions (which are posted on his Web site and at http://www.sfbg.com). Among other things, he asks, "Are there bounty payments for other issue areas?" In other words, is almost everything on the Alternet wire compromised? Is there any way for any of the papers that use the material (or their readers) to know? Not so far, because Hazen is still keeping it all secret: he refused to respond to Girodano and to a series of questions that we submitted and has offered only a brief nonresponse to media critic Dan Kennedy (http://www.dankennedy.net) in which he doesn't deny the "bounty" system.

The problem is that all of this sleaze tarnishes the good name of the alternative press and all of the writers who sell their work through Alternet. Hazen needs to come clean – now – or his board of directors needs to force him to do so. If he won't answer the questions, the newspapers that provide and run Alternet material and the writers who submit it have no choice but to stop doing business with IMI.

For full details of this debate and its background check out the following:

Al Giordano's original piece on Alternet

Narco News letters page

Media Channel interview with Hazen regarding Giordano's charges

Don Hazen's story on FAIR, which started a conflict between media critic Robert McChesney and Hazen

McChesney's response

Past Bay Guardian stories on the issue

Don Hazen's folly

Following the money

Remarks on Project Censored and alternative journalism

The censored-debate: April 14, 2000

Our picks for the most censored local stories of 2000

Last stand at KPFA

The $60 million Presidio rip-off

Privatizing the public agenda