It’s unfortunate, but true, that it’s much easier to promote articles about one’s efforts from a stance of disagreement.  Argument is entertaining and can be an opportunity for developing responses, while simple promotion feels self serving.

Such is the case with Phil Eil’s article in the Providence Phoenix about the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity.  It would have been an improvement on prior articles based simply on the fact that Eil notes that the Center has actual employees, and that we live in Rhode Island, but it’s a more complete report than that.  Simply put, he clearly believes his readers will find more of interest about the Center than just the question of our funding.  That’s journalism.

On the funding count, though, I’d highlight this passage, offering the view of Tom Sgouros, who is one of the panelists in the debate that the Center is hosting tomorrow at URI (emphasis added):

Sgouros, while appreciative of the Center’s invitation to participate in the debate (and the check that comes with it), isn’t enamored with “The Center for Freedom and Apple Pie,” as he calls it. They are, he says, “the latest guise of the sort of out-of-state funded noise machine that clamors for public policy changes mostly to benefit the wealthy.”

Put aside the empty ideological or partisan talking points.  The reality is that there is no conceptual difference between the pay that Sgouros is drawing from the Center and the pay that I do.

Money from a variety of sources flows to the Center to support a mission about which it is completely open.  In turn, the Center — with a board and staff made up of Rhode Islanders — allocates that money to people who want to make certain arguments, ultimately to support that mission.  In the case of the debate, the Center thinks it would benefit people with whom we agree and with whom we disagree to hear both sides of a public policy question forcefully stated, and Sgouros is a person who forcefully states his point of view (with which we disagree).

It would be foolish to suggest that the Center is paying Sgouros to believe certain principles, and it is foolish to insist that our other work is contrived to help special interests without regard to the principles that we articulate.