On Sept. 17, Toronto-based The Globe and Mail newspaper published an extraordinary and very lengthy article vilifying Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and calling him “a top voice of misinformation on social media.” The headline for the piece summarizes its range: “How a Kennedy became a ‘superspreader’ of hoaxes on COVID-19, vaccines, 5G and more”. [1]

For more than a decade, Kennedy Jr. has raised issues about vaccine safety through the organization he founded, Children’s Health Defense. The Globe and Mail piece stated:

“Like other conspiracy theorists, [RFK Jr.] has gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic by adapting his anti-vaccine messages to fit the crisis, firing off false allegations against Microsoft founder Bill Gates [on COVID-19 vaccines, and other issues] and about the safety of 5G telecom networks. Since February, Mr. Kennedy Jr.’s social media support has tripled from 229,000 followers to 665,000 today.”

Screenshot from The Globe and Mail

At the end of what can only be called a smear piece, the print edition of The Globe and Mail stated, “This article was originally published by Tortoise, a different kind of newsroom committed to a slower, wiser news. To try Tortoise, Globe readers can get a 30-day free trial and a special half price offer…”

Strangely, the article made no mention of Children’s Health Defense, or of Kennedy’s Jr.’s August 29 speech in Berlin, where he addressed a huge rally. He told them that the COVID-19 pandemic is a “crisis of convenience for the elites” who are “destroying the middle class,” “using the quarantine to bring 5G into our communities” for “surveillance and data-mining”, and shifting us all “to digital currencies” and a cashless society that will benefit “the billionaires.”

Similarly, the Tortoise article didn’t mention that on August 17, Children’s Health Defense filed a lawsuit against Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and three fact-checking companies, charging them with censoring truthful public health information. [2]

So what (or who) is Tortoise Media?

“Slower, Wiser News”?

Tortoise Media was launched in April 2019 by three people: James Harding, former editor at Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper, and subsequently head of BBC News until resigning in October 2017;  Matthew Barzun, former US ambassador to the UK; and Katie Vanneck-Smith, former president of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones.

Initial financial backing for London-based Tortoise was provided by banker Bernie Mensah, Global Head of Emerging Markets for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, tech investor Saul Klein, and two anonymous backers. [3]

The Tortoise Media website now lists Harding as Editor; Vanneck-Smith as Publisher; Matthew Barzun as Chairman; and Ceci Kurzman (former founder of Nexus Management) as Independent Director. The website also currently lists 27 major funding partners, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Edelman, Facebook, Google, and the Rockefeller Foundation. [4] This article will focus on the Gates Foundation, and Edelman – considered one of the largest public-relations firms in the world, with some 67 offices worldwide.

Tortoise Media used a November 2018 Kickstarter campaign to launch a drive for a membership boutique –  a “redistributive model” for news funding by which expensive membership tiers provide funding for less expensive (or free) memberships.

By June of 2019, Tortoise Media had 8,000 members, with 40 per cent of them under the age of 30. Businesses are funding memberships to be distributed by charitable organizations, academies, and other groups in order to “fill Tortoise’s demographic gaps, such as those outside London, teenagers, the elderly, and the working class.” [5] Press Gazette also noted that only three months after the April 2019 launch, seven major brand names “including Santander bank and PR firm Edelman” had signed up to fund memberships. [6]

A Tortoise membership costs from 5 pounds sterling per month (or 50 pounds per year) for someone under-30, to 24 pounds per month (for other individuals) and 250 pounds per month (for businesses and wealthy sponsors). The first 5,000 founding student members receive free membership. By November 2019, Tortoise Media was claiming “nearly 20,000 members,” with numbers climbing rapidly because of widespread corporate support subsidizing memberships. [7]

Tortoise hosts frequent “ThinkIns” (editorial meetings and conversations) between partners and members, between partners and stakeholders, and between partner companies and their employees. “We believe in opening up journalism,” their website states, “so we can examine issues and develop ideas for the 21^st Century. We want to do this with our members and with our partners. We want to give everyone a seat at the table.” Tortoise calls its members “family.”

The Tortoise Media website stresses that “we don’t take ads…Instead, our journalism is funded by our members and our partners. We establish partnerships with businesses willing to back a new form of journalism, enable the public debate, share their expertise and communicate their point of view.” But Tortoise hastens to add: “Our partners, of course, know that we are a journalistic enterprise. Our independence is non-negotiable. If we ever have to choose between the relationship and the story, we’ll always choose the story.”

With regard to the September 17 piece smearing RFK Jr., Tortoise Media didn’t have to choose between the relationship with two of its funding partners (the Gates Foundation, Facebook) and “the story” because all three were nicely aligned.