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It's been reported several times that several groups, individuals and institutions have been paid off by the Qatari government for favorable press treatment in the West. For example Wikipedia has this to say about Brookings

The Qatari government was named by The New York Times as "the single biggest foreign donor to Brookings", having reportedly made a $14.8 million, four-year contribution in 2013. A former visiting fellow at a Brookings affiliate in Qatar reportedly said that "he had been told during his job interview that he could not take positions critical of the Qatar government in papers".[107]

Is there a good or definitive listing of press that has taken Qatari money?

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OpenSecrets has a list of some Qatari PR contributions during their recent conflict with the Saudi-led part of the Arab world.

These are by no means unique; the same source has a similar list of Turkish efforts, for example. Likewise they have a list for Saudi Arabia.

OpenSecrets' articles seem to be based mostly on FARA disclosures though. They don't seem to include less clear-cut cases like the AMI advertorial for Saudi Arabia, for instance. A more complete list like that is probably much harder to put together. I also don't know if the now closed pro-Saudi Arabia Foundation think tank did or didn't register as a foreign agent, for example.

There are some bipartisan US efforts to go beyond FARA, e.g. the Honest Ads Act, but despite being proposed some years ago, they have yet to make it all the way through Congress.

The original NYT piece from which Wikipedia quoted the bit from your question talks of unclear rules in Washington on disclosure of foreign funding sources for think tanks. They also have this big chart mapping donor countries to a handful of think tanks, which probably only scratches the surface, as it only covers a few leading think tanks and is based on their voluntarily disclosed information (i.e. think tanks are not compelled under any US law to disclose foreign donors, apparently).

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  • Check out the Lanham Act – user9790 Oct 20 '19 at 10:33
  • You could also add the Confucius Institutes as well – user9790 Oct 20 '19 at 14:32
  • That graph is a great asset – user9790 Oct 20 '19 at 14:34

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