Report: Ties Between George Soros And Newsroom Study?

George Soros

On Friday, the FCC issued a statement saying it would pull the plug on the C-I-N study -- which would have sent researchers into U.S. newsrooms -- after intense criticism from lawmakers, members of the media and even a member of the commission. But, according to Fox News,  lawmakers say they still have questions about the project and its origins.

The two schools working with the FCC on the project – the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy – were responsible for coming up with criteria for what information is “critical” for Americans to have. The original mission of the project was to study what barriers exist to "critical information" reaching the public.

The journalism schools, it turns out, have financial ties to Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Between 2000 and 2011, about $1.4 million was paid to UW-Madison recipients from the foundation. In 2007, Soros’ foundation gave $300,000 to the Madison Commons Project but it is not known how much of that money, if any, is connected to the study.

It's also be reported that Lewis Friedland, the “principle investigator” on the FCC project, heads up the Center for Communication and Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Soros has almost doubled his net worth in the years President Obama has occupied the Oval Office. Under Obama, his fortune jumped to $20 billion in 2013 from $11 billion in 2009. During the George W. Bush presidency, Soros made $2.1 billion.

Read More Now