America depends on philanthropy. Schools, universities, hospitals, performing arts centers – many foundations of the community couldn’t run without generous donors.

     "Ours is certainly not the only nation to have philanthropy – in fact, most societies have traditions of giving in some form or other. But we are one in which philanthropy affects almost all parts of our culture and a huge proportion of our people."

     That quote was from Ford Foundation President Susan Berresford, who is on Forbes’ list of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World. She added: "At the heart of U.S. philanthropy is freedom."

     Berresford extolled the freedom Americans have to support causes that are important to them – a diversity of causes. But there wasn’t much diversity in the nightly news coverage of philanthropy.

     The star of 2006 was Warren Buffett’s historic $43.5-billion gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whose causes include AIDS relief, vaccine research, libraries, education and computers for children.

     Granted, such a historic gift easily merited media coverage. But if it hadn’t been for Buffett, audiences would have heard little about philanthropy at all. For example, even on ABC – which had the most coverage of philanthropy – the Gates Foundation’s causes made up 24 of the 30 causes mentioned. That’s a whopping 80 percent of ABC’s charity coverage. Overall, Gates’ causes claimed 56 percent of all the charity coverage across the five networks.

     But the media weren’t always as fond of Gates, who was named (along with wife Melinda) one of Time magazine’s "Persons of the Year" in 2005 for his charitable work.

     Before he started giving away billions of dollars to poor people, Gates’ name was synonymous with his own Big Business, Microsoft, and worries about a corporate monopoly. In March 1998, ABC’s Peter Jennings introduced one story: "Now we’re going to take ‘A Closer Look’ at whether we consumers should be afraid of Bill Gates, and if so, why?"

     The broadcast networks detailed the case against Microsoft and Gates, with little free-market defense of the company, according to analysis by the Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes.

     For other businessmen, giving to a media-approved cause went a long way toward getting positive press. For example, businessmen from the air travel industry appeared 37 times in 2006. They were usually defending price hikes, flight cancellations and the like. But at least one was different.

     CBS featured Richard Branson, one of "a growing list of billionaires who are donating to philanthropic causes," Katie Couric said on September 21. The "Evening News" wasn’t bashing this airline executive – because he was pledging $3 billion of his profits to develop alternative fuels in an attempt to stem global warming.

     Americans are very generous. According to the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation’s numbers, crunched by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Prosperity, U.S. private assistance abroad amounted to $92.2 billion in 2005. About $2.2 billion came from foundations, and $5.1 billion from corporations. But $61.7 billion of that was from individuals.

     Yet the evening news shows portrayed businessmen and women who were donating only 66 times – and more than half of those mentions referenced just two people, Buffett and Gates.

     ABC was the best network when it came to showing the generosity of businesspeople, with 11 percent of its portrayals as philanthropists. NBC was close behind at 10 percent. Fox and CBS tied with 6 percent each.

     CNN trailed the lot with a paltry 1.6 percent. Only one out of 62 portrayals with a viewpoint about businessmen had to do with charitable giving. Adding insult to injury, CNN had seven portrayals of criminal businessmen, giving it a 7-to-1 criminal-to-philanthropist ratio.

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