Recently we noted that Elon Musk’s zoomer devs’ trip through U.S. government files showed that media organizations like Politico, the BBC, Associated Press, and the New York Times were recipients of U.S. government funding. While that necessarily conflicts with claims of independent reporting, Politico and the BBC are now striking back, claiming that it ain’t so.

Politico argues,

“POLITICO has been the subject of debate on X this week. Some of it has been misinformed, and some of it has been flat-out false. Let’s set the record straight,” the outlet wrote as part of a memo published on its website. “POLITICO is a privately owned company. We have never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts. Not one dime, ever, in 18 years.”

Dominick Mastrangelo, “Politico publishes note ‘to set the record straight’ on government subscription outrage,” The Hill, February 6, 2025

Further down, we read,

It is common for federal agencies to allow employees to expense subscriptions to newspapers, wire services and other media outlets as a function of their jobs, while subscriptions to niche content in a specific policy area can cost thousands of dollars a year. “Government subscription outrage,”

But the story may not be as simple as that:

I have no doubt that the media outlets involved can produce invoices showing they provided “premium” subscriptions to the various agencies. But just like auditing a money laundering operation, you are not obligated to take what they say at face value. In fact, the government contracting documents indicate there is something else going on.

Streiff, “The Media Is Lying to You About Their Government Funding,” RedState February 8, 2025

Streiff offers charts at RedState. Here’s Politico:

The charts he shows for subscriptions to the New York Times and news agency Associated Press, like the one for Politico above, show a huge sudden spike in January 2021 and sustained high levels since then. Here’s Associated Press:

If these charts produced from government funding data are accurate, all these news organizations found a huge new source of income just when Joe Biden’s administration took power in January 2021. If federal government funding is not the explanation, perhaps they can provide a more accurate one. But indignation is not an explanation.