That might explain the piece the wire service ran today, under the headline, "Who's Behind the Wall Street Protests?"

Reporters Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols suggest that Glenn Beck's demented chalkboard scribbles might have actually been on the right track; the protests "may have benefited indirectly from the largesse of one of the world's richest men"-- George Soros.

They write:

One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros, who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans. Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.

Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests.

Readers learn than none other than Rush Limbaugh has been able to see the clear-as-day connection:

But conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh summed up the speculation when he told his listeners last week, "George Soros money is behind this."

Indeed, when one thinks of the grassroots activists occupying Wall Street, the first question is how on Earth they are bankrolling such a costly project.

Reuters eventually gets to the heart of the critique, and sure enough it involves the Tides Center--another Glenn Beck obsession. They report:

According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009, Soros' Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.

That's actually a somewhat accurate description of what Tides does--which makes the connection to the demonstrations... what, exactly? Here we go:

Disclosure documents also show Tides, which declined comment, gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.

So a philanthropic clearinghouse of sorts received money from a Soros charity. And Adbusters, over the years, has received money from that same clearinghouse. Couldn't be clearer!

The Reuters piece has been picked apart by, among others, Salon's Alex Pareene and Noreen Malone at New York magazine. And a Huffington Post story points out that it's been criticized by other Reuters journalists:

Several Reuters journalists also attacked the story. Business and media writer Felix Salmon called the article "ridiculous" and social media editor Anthony DeRosa said, "When I read 'Rush Limbaugh summed up the speculation' I wanted to crawl under a rock."

UPDATE: According to the New York Observer, at some point Reuters switched to a story headlined "Soros: Not a Funder of Wall Street Protests."

The original story unsurprisingly found its way to Fox News Channel-- here's an exchange from last night's O'Reilly Factor with Margaret Hoover:

O'REILLY: I think these guys were organized by the George Soros-funded MoveOn operations. Reuters, by the way, has an article on that today that you have to read, Hoover, linking in the Soros money to these agitators.

HOOVER: And what that article actually said is that Soros money had funded the original group Adbusters.

O'REILLY: That's right.

HOOVER: But the last time Soros directly funded it was seven years ago. Although a lot of Soros money -- and this is the thing about Soros money, is that because it is...

O'REILLY: It's everywhere.

HOOVER: It's everywhere.

O'REILLY: It's everywhere.

HOOVER: And small amounts to all these progressive groups that are progressive groups. There's no way...

O'REILLY: You know what Soros money -- did you see "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," where if you went to sleep you became an alien? That's like Soros money. You go to sleep and they come.

Usually propaganda is a little more clever than this (Reuters, 4/20/10):

Israel, like the United States, European Union and others, suspects Iran is developing atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies. Iran, whose president has said Israel should be wiped off the map, says its nuclear program is peaceful.

Reporting that "the Obama administration has recently paid a lot of lip service to freedom of the press, particularly around the case of Iranian-American journalist Roxanna Saberi, who was released May 11 from an Iranian prison," Jeremy Scahill asks (Rebel Reports, 5/26/09) the simple question, "If Iran Freed Roxanna Saberi, Why Won't the U.S. Release Journalist Ibrahim Jassam?"

Part of the answer might lie in a media environment heeding former Col. Ralph Peters' recent "essay for a leading neocon group calling for future U.S. military attacks on media outlets and journalists" along with "censorship" and "news blackouts."

Of course, Scahill is savvy enough to point out that "what Col. Peters is advocating is not new"--"It is already a de facto U.S. policy to target journalists":

The U.S. has consistently attacked journalists and media organizations in modern wars. In the 1999 US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark, then the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, ordered an airstrike on Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, including make-up artists and technical staff, an action Amnesty International labeled a “war crime.” Richard Holbrooke, who is currently Obama’s point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan, praised that bombing at the time.

The U.S. bombed Al Jazeera in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, attacked it multiple times in the 2003 Iraq invasion, and killed Jazeera correspondent Tarek Ayoub. On April 8, 2003, a U.S. Abrams tank fired at the Palestine Hotel, home and office to more than 100 unembedded international journalists operating in Baghdad at the time. The shell smashed into the fifteenth-floor Reuters office, killing two cameramen, Reuters' Taras Protsyuk and José Couso of Spain's Telecinco....

Last week, a Spanish judge reinstated charges against three U.S. soldiers in Couso’s killing, citing new evidence, including eyewitness testimony contradicting official U.S. claims that soldiers were responding to enemy fire from the hotel. One year ago, former Army Sergeant Adrienne Kinne told Democracy Now! she saw the Palestine Hotel on a military target list and said she frequently intercepted calls from journalists staying there.

All of which makes it less than surprising that, as Scahill tells us, "the U.S. military continues to hold journalists as prisoners without charges or rights in...Iraq. Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for Reuters has been a U.S. prisoner in Iraq since last September despite an Iraqi court's order last year that he be freed." See the FAIR Press Release: "Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy?" (4/10/03)