Reason Roundup

Liz Wolfe | 9.5.2024 9:30 AM

Russian meddling: Yesterday, the Department of Justice charged two Russian media operatives, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva (both affiliated with RT, formerly known as Russia Today), in a scheme it alleges funneled many millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based company that employs prominent heterodox/conservative commentators.

The company is almost definitely Tenet Media, founded by Lauren Chen (a.k.a. Roaming Millennial) and Liam Donovan, who allegedly knew the funding came from Russia; at least two contributors, meanwhile, were reportedly misled. The company employs Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Southern.

The commentators seem to believe they are the real victims, see here and here. The founders have not returned requests for comment.

But, per The Washington Post, "one unnamed Tenet contributor with 2.4 million YouTube followers on their own channel received $400,000 a month, plus a $100,000 signing bonus and performance incentives, just for making four videos a week for Tenet, according to the indictment. Another unnamed commentator made $100,000 per video, according to the indictment." It is surprising that journalists seemingly did not think to ask why they're getting paid so damn much per video, or where the outlet's money might be coming from. I suppose they may have simply thought they were hot shit vs. accidentally payola'd. (Apparently, at one point, one commentator did ask where the money was coming from, but received a suspicion-inducing answer that was…deemed........

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