Columbia University Provost Katznelson's Russell Sage Foundation Connection: Part 12

 

Columbia U.-linked Russell Sage Foundation board has been interlocked with board of Carnegie Corp. of NY, as well as boards of MacArthur Foundation and WGBH media organization since 2020. 

Besides sitting next to former Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Dean Nicholas Lemann since 2016 on the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees that Columbia Provost and 2019-2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar” Katznelson sat on between 1992 and 2002, MacArthur Foundation board member and Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Martha Minow also began sitting on the board of trustees of Greater Boston’s PBS television and NPR radio station, WGBH, in September 2017.

Coincidentally, prior to Russell Sage Foundation Trustee and MacArthur Foundation Director Minow joining the corporate underwritten, foundation-subsidized and publicly-funded Corporate for Public Broadcasting’s WGBH board of trustees in 2017, WGBH had been given four “charitable” grants, totaling over $6.8 million, by the “philanthropic”  MacArthur Foundation since Minow first began sitting on the MacArthur Foundation board in January 2012—including a tax-exempt $4.2 million “charitable” grant in 2015 “for unrestricted support of its project FRONTLINE.”

And, also coincidentally, after Russell Sage Trustee and MacArthur Foundation board member Minow joined the WGBH board of trustees, the “philanthropic” MacArthur Foundation gave another “charitable” grant of $600,000 to WGBH “in support of WORLD Channel’s documentary production” in 2018.

In addition, Russell Sage Foundation Trustee and MacArthur Foundation board member Minow also sat on the board of directors of the for-profit CBS media conglomerate at the same time she was sitting on the publicly-funded WGBH media organization’s board of trustees between 2017 and December 2019, when CBS Corporation’s merger with Viacom to form ViacomCBS was finalized.

And, as a Bloomberglaw.com article by Brian Baxter, titled “ViacomCBS Paid Nearly $20 Million to Top Lawyers in 2019”, that was posted on Apr. 8, 2020 noted, Russell Sage and WGBH Trustee and MacArthur Foundation Director Minow “who previously served on the board of CBS, earned $465,053 in total compensation from ViacomCBS” in 2019; before this trustee of the philanthropic Russell Sage foundation and non-profit WGBH media organization “stepped down from the” CBS Corporation “board in December” 2019  “when the ViacomCBS merger was finalized. “

Coincidentally, former CBS and current WGBH, MacArthur Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation board member Minow has also been sitting since June 2020 on the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York foundation (whose assets exceeded $3.5 billion in 2020).

And, not surprisingly, two “charitable” grants, totaling $1.5 million, were received by the “non-profit” Russell Sage Foundation (whose former board of trustees chair is Columbia Provost Katznelson and current board of trustees vice-chair is former Columbia Journalism School Dean Lemann) from the “philanthropic” Carnegie Corporation of New York foundation since 2016, including a tax-exempt grant of $500,000 that was given to the Russell Sage Foundation in 2020—the same year that Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Minow also became a member of the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation, whose headquarters are located at 437 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

And, in addition, the Upper West Side’s Columbia University and Teachers College of Columbia University were given five grants in 2020, totaling over $950,000, by the Carnegie Corporation, including a “charitable” grant of $413,400 “for continuing to digitize the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s historical records” that will only be “available to the public after an applicable embargo time” and a “charitable” grant of $175,000 “for core support of The Hechinger Report”—after Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Minow began sitting on the “philanthropic” Carnegie Corporation’s board in 2020.

(end of part 12. To be continued).(This article was first posted on the Upper West Side Patch website).