Every country’s history has been marred by scandals of covert newspaper-buying by economic magnates. This is happening today at the European level.

For example, in 2019 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made the following donations:
– Der Spiegel: $ 2,537,294
– Die Zeit: $ 297,124
– Le Monde: $ 2,126,790
– The Atlantic: $ 500,222
– The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: $ 1,068,169
– The Guardian: $ 175,000
– The Project Syndicate (op-eds): $ 1,619,861

It should be noted that by funding investigations (e.g. Bureau of Investigative Journalism) or by paying the authors of op-eds which are then translated and disseminated in several languages (Project Syndicate), the "donor" effectively "supports" all the newspapers that reproduce them without having to lay out any more money.