Rick Wiley

I’ve had this weight on me for a while and felt the need to share it once and for all. Years ago, the CEO and co-founder of Semafor, a media publication, approached me. He presumably wanted me to consider investing, because he spent a significant amount of time boasting about all of his supplemental sources of revenue. I was stunned when he bragged about getting an enormous amount of money from the government of Qatar. The pretense was that he was receiving these funds to “train journalists.” I don’t recall the precise amounts, but recall that he acknowledged that the cost to conduct this “training” was a tiny fraction of what he was getting paid - directionally it was something like getting paid $2mm to conduct a “media training” boot camp that would cost Semafor $50,000 to execute. I pointed out that it sounded like he was being bribed - that nobody with proper intentions would offer to pay something that was 20-100X off market - and no entity pretending to be a journalism outfit should accept stuff like that, as it would compromise him. He insisted that wouldn’t happen. But over the course of many years, I’ve observed how Semafor continues to receive government sponsorships and perform all sorts of “trainings” and “conferences” in partnership with Qatar, while providing very complementary coverage to the government of Qatar. This is downright unethical - and particularly unbecoming of an outfit pretending to be “training journalists”! The problem doesn’t end with Semafor. The government of Qatar has been buying off media, education and other groups, with reports of how it deployed billions of dollars in the US higher education system. All of us who care about ethics should demand an investigation into these practices. Regardless of whether legal authorities choose to look into this, we as the people and the consumers should admonish such egregious behavior and ensure we avoid “media” publications that are so compromised. Countless journalists risk their lives every day to expose abuses in power. Semafor does a disservice to the profession by undermining trust. @buildersmideast @BuildersMvt