From: Steven I. Weiss To: Mickey Kaus, Juan Cole Subject: Memri Budget

Juan & Mickey -
As a 501 (c) 3, their 990 filings are public information.

In fiscal '02:
Revenue: $1,718,712
Expenses: $1,426,606
Assets: $418,465
Liabilities: $44,933
Source --
keep it good,
Steven I. Weiss

From: Juan Cole
To: Steven I. Weiss
Dear Steven:
I think they are getting very substantial in-kind donations of labor and services in Israel, possibly from Israeli military intelligence.
Think about it. How do you buy hundreds of Arabic newspapers every day? How do you ship them quickly to a central place to be scanned for content and translated? How do you warehouse them? How do you translate them quickly.
This couldn't be done from Washington, DC, frankly, and couldn't be done by 6 employees there. We are seeing a tip of an iceberg.
cheers Juan

From: Steven I. Weiss
To: Juan Cole
Juan -
I don't have a lot of familiarity with MEMRI, but in taking a cursory look at their site, it seems they only actually produce an item a day or less (sometimes, rarely, two). It strikes me as highly plausible that an organization with six employees could pull that off; indeed, I imagine it could fairly easily be done with fewer.
As to buying, reading and translating many papers every day, given the scale of their operation, it doesn't look like they do that; if they did, they'd probably have more content. It doesn't take a lot to wake up every morning in D.C. with tips in your e-mail/fax from whomever in the Middle East is already reading these papers and is supportive of your organization, and then act on them.
Frankly, if I were a donor, I'd wonder just how it costs $1.5 million to keep six employees on-board (I'm working on your number; I haven't seen anything else to tell me how many employees they have). I'm assuming the costs are primarily associated with distributing their content via Web & fax, as it wouldn't seem to take all that much to produce it. It appears their financial statements back up this assumption.
keep it good,
Steven I. Weiss

From: Juan Cole
To: Steven I. Weiss
Dear Steven:
Thanks for your further reflections.
My point was only that if you counted the "tips" in the fax machine as part of the labor of the organization (and I suspect it is something much more organized), they would be worth lots of money in time etc.
cheers Juan

If I counted all the "tips" I have sent other bloggers over the past 3 years, I would be as rich as Bill Gates. My unsolicited suggestions to "Best of the Web" alone must be worth a year's rent here in Manhattan. Earth to Juan: Journalists send each other "tips" all the time. Not only that, popular blogs get huge amounts of email suggesting the blogger comment on and link to various news stories. I'm sure, Juan, that your correspondents send you tips for your blog. How hard is it, Juan, for a correspondent in Egypt to email MEMRI staff a link? Lots of Arab media is online. And if it's not, how hard is it to fax a few pages of a news article?

Ah, but when the Jews do it, it is somehow mysterious and nefarious and must be evaluated much differently that when anyone else does it . . . .

UPDATE: Some context.