Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs?

Despite the reassurances from those close to the deal that the Kochs have no plans to use the media platform to proselytize, many of the liberal activists who closely track them remain suspicious. “There is zero chance that the Koch brothers are going to keep their hands off the content of these magazines,” Mary Bottari, the deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit that documents right-wing and corporate influence-buying, told me. “When they donated nearly three million dollars to Florida State University, they wrote a contract giving them control over hiring decisions in the economics department,” she said. (Donations were made between 2007 and 2015.) “The entire point of the purchase is to infuse the mainstream media with their extreme views.”