Consideration of the influence of foundation funding on international news is, at the moment, limited to theoretical critique or brief critical discussions of anecdotal examples. As Browne (2010:890) puts it, ‘there has not, as yet, been any comprehensive content analysis of the work produced by foundation-funded journalists and it would be unfair to jump to critical conclusions via anecdote’. Feldman’s (2007:445) conclusion that, ‘the funded left has moved towards the mainstream as it has increased its dependence on foundations’, for example, is no more than an assertion drawn from data showing a general increase in foundation funding for media organisations over time. Existing studies are also focussed almost exclusively on the influence of US foundations on US media.

In addition, Browne (2010), Feldman (2007) and others frequently refer to the idea of a ‘benevolent fog’, or ‘the ethical confusion that may be engendered by foundations’ (Browne 2010:891) to explain how they understand the influence of foundation funding to operate. Unfortunately, this concept of a ‘benevolent fog’ is almost entirely unexplored. No account is given of how it is produced or how it operates, for example, or how it manifests itself in different ways under different circumstances. In summary, existing research into foundation funded journalism is empirically thin, methodologically frail and conceptually weak.