On April 12, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson will be the latest to deliver the School of Media and Journalism’s Roy H. Park Distinguished Lecture. The lecture is funded by the Triad Foundation, which was formed in 2003 by Park’s son, Roy Park Jr., a graduate of the MJ-school and winner of the Davie Award, the Board of Trustees’ highest honor.
Carlson follows in the footsteps of a host of conservative columnists, commentators, and other media figures who have given the talk in the past. Four of the previous six lectures featured speakers from Fox News; visitors to 2013 and 2015’s events came from the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal, respectively.
Carlson’s slating has drawn criticism from the Chapel Hill community. The News & Observer cited several incensed alumni of the MJ-school who wrote on Twitter and other platforms that the decision left them “embarrassed and ashamed." Frustrated responses to the original announcement on the school’s Twitter surpassed 70.
Faculty member John Robinson, adjunct director of the School of Media and Journalism, wrote a blog post questioning the validity of the backlash. While acknowledging differences between the two instances, he ultimately compared the event to the Institute of Politics’ recent conversation with New York Times columnist Frank Bruni and current UNC president Margaret Spellings.
The IOP, however, bears no responsibility to train journalists. Even if it did, hosting two figures from opposite ends of the political spectrum is far more conducive to learning than inviting a slew of conservative commentators for years in a row.
The Triad Foundation was formed in 2003 as an offshoot of the Park Foundation. The Park Foundation continues to contribute to liberal causes, while the Triad Foundation funds dozens of conservative and libertarian think tanks and gives generously to The Daily Caller, the conservative publication founded by Carlson in 2010.
Some of the foundation’s financial ventures, however, are more questionable than conservative writing or convenient research. Triad’s Form 990 documents submitted for the fiscal year 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, reveal donations to organizations and projects devoted to combating the “leftist media.”
The Triad Foundation gave over $56,000 that year to the Media Research Center, a nonprofit whose self-proclaimed sole mission is “To expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media.” The Center’s website notes praises from right-wing incendiaries Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for “documenting liberal bias” and includes a “Media Bias 101” page for interpreting what journalists really think.
Triad also contributed $20,000 total in 2015 to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, some of which was directed to the organization’s TruthRevolt.org site. The organization warns that “the political left has declared war on America and its constitutional system. At the bottom of their “Who We Are” page is a clip from the television show Homeland titled “Quinn tells it like it is about Isis” that may or may not be there intentionally. TruthRevolt was founded by Horowitz and Ben Shapiro in 2013 and, like the Media Research Center, aims to “expose the leftist news media.” The site was denounced by The Daily Caller later that year for supporting a boycott of Ritz Crackers.
