Gigi Sohn talked to Personal Democracy Forum about the work she does at her organization, Public Knowledge. She took time to call out RedState and Less Government. Here’s my hastily-created transcript of the key passage around the 28:00 mark:
[On AT&T/T-Mobile] We often get attacked by the right-wing press, folks like, you know, RedState and Less Government, so I’m constantly dealing with attacks fully funded by AT&T – it’s like not even a secret – calling us, you know, Soros-supported Marxists and Google shills and all these kind… So, I mean I don’t want to respond to those things, but they shape the debate. They’re out in the air.
She says RedState, but at RedState I’m the one who posts on these issues, and mostly in my Tech at Night series. In that series I do highlight repeatedly that Public Knowledge takes money from George Soros’s Open Society Institute. This is a documented fact on their own webpage.
However I don’t get paid a dime by AT&T. I don’t make a penny off of my tech policy writing. I don’t work for AT&T and never have. I don’t accept money from them and never have, not directly or indirectly. I’m one guy who devotes a few nights a week to studying and writing about these issues, and the fully-funded, paid professional Gigi Sohn feels the need to single me out.
I actually am looking for work in the DC or Austin areas to fund my escape from California. So if AT&T did want to hire me, well, serious offers would be listened to. Heck, if Sprint Nextel wanted to hire me, I’d listen. But the fact of the matter is, I’m a lone amateur. I’m not corporate funded and I’m not foundation funded. RedState doesn’t even pay its writers, let alone AT&T.
And that’s the whole story.