Here at PShAW, we’re all for disagreement and debate. But we also believe in full disclosure. So in that spirit, let me be clear that neither Free Press, PShAW, nor I take a dime from any businesses, media and telecom industry groups, political parties or the government. – Tim Karr, writing on Huffington Post.

Tim has repeated this claim several times in the ongoing skirmish he and I are having over transparency.  But does his claim really stand up? Let’s take a look.

Credo Mobile/Working Assets

Working Assets/Credo Mobile, a telecommunications company, freely lists the $45,520 they gave to Free Press in 2007.  At the time, according to their 990 filing, Free Press’ campaign Director Tim Karr was making $80,000 per year.  So the Working Assets contribution amounted to more than half of Tim’s salary.

Tim’s claim that neither he nor Free Press have taken business money is demonstrably false.  The debate could end there with an indictment of Tim’s veracity. But let’s look closer at the claim and the way Free Press hides additional sources of their funding.

The 12 “Persons” Who Gave Free Press Three Million Dollars

Free Press’ 990 filing for 2008 lists 12 “persons” who gave Free Press $3,025,000.  That amount is equal to 69.5% of the $4.3 million they raised in 2008.  (Their 2009 report is not available) While the report lists the amounts of those donations, it does not disclose the specific source.

In questioning on a Huffington Post piece where he attacked Bret Swanson and me for transparency, he indicated that those 12 “persons” could, under IRS definitions, include foundations.

Foundations, if we accept the Wikipedia definition, can be either “private foundations (usually funded by an individual, family, or corporation) [or] public charities (community foundations and other nonprofit groups that raise money from the general public.)”

Since Free Press has chosen not to indicate which Foundations provided the contributions that range between $100,000 and $700,000, we have no way to independently verify which may consist of corporate funds and which don’t.

Shell Games

While Tim is entitled to play shell games with their funding, hiding behind IRS definitions and loopholes, there is little avenue available to interested individuals to judge whether Free Press’ benefactors stand to benefit from his organization’s policy positions.

Update: Just after I published this piece, Tim posted an update to Twitter in which he claims “Free Press meets legal standard of transparency.”  That seems like a statement of qualification versus the belief in “full disclosure” he states in the quote above. Apparently he has now recognized the discrepancy between full disclosure and their redacted reports.  So he’s changed his position to hide behind another legal term of art.