by Eric Martin
Ah, remember the days when Jake Tapper, Ruth Marcus and a host of others rushed to the aid of poor little Fox News when the White House suggested that the network served more as a GOP surrogate than a, well, fair and balanced news organization?
Well, Fox News has put its money where its mouth is:
With Republicans hoping to recapture a number of statehouses in November, the media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch is inserting itself into the races in bold fashion with a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association.
The contribution from Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and other news outlets, is one of the biggest ever given by a media organization, campaign finance experts said.
Democrats seized on the donation as evidence of the News Corporation’s conservative leanings, with Media Matters for America, a liberal group that has tangled often with the company, calling it “an appendage of the Republican Party.”
At the time, an incredulous and indignant Tapper asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: "How [is Fox] any different from, say...ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?"
Jake: See above.
They're just supporting real Americans.
Posted by: Ugh | August 18, 2010 at 04:25 PM
Interesting that you didn't quote this paragraph from the link:
(bold mine)
Posted by: Marty | August 18, 2010 at 04:26 PM
And, of course, both NBC and Comcast have not only contributed to Democrats in the 100's of thousands but Comcast VP and lobbyist Cohen raised $6M for Obama.
Posted by: Marty | August 18, 2010 at 04:31 PM
Right Marty, but it does help my argument and I should have mentioned it.
News Corp had given small, thousand dollar donations to both parties in the past - though even then, more to Republican causes/candidates.
Now, however, they have increased their level of commitment dramatically - giving a whopping million dollar donation to the Republican governors association, and NOTHING to the Dems.
So, yeah. Good point.
Posted by: Eric Martin | August 18, 2010 at 04:34 PM
And, of course, both NBC and Comcast have not only contributed to Democrats in the 100's of thousands but Comcast VP and lobbyist Cohen raised $6M for Obama.
And, of course, Comcast is not a news organization. And neither "NBC" nor "Comcast" contributed to Dems. The CEO and another exec of Comcast contributed to both parties individually, with vastly larger sums going to Dems.
But that is not the same as the company itself. Nor is it what you claimed.
Posted by: Eric Martin | August 18, 2010 at 04:39 PM
That $1 million is more than twice as much as News America Holdings has ever given out in an entire election cycle. At some point, quantity turns into quality. (I'm not sure why Murdoch would care so much about governors' races, but there's probably a good reason.)
Posted by: Hogan | August 18, 2010 at 04:41 PM
Wow, so Rupert Murdoch telling someone at Newscorp isn't the same as an NBC exec giving 180k out of his own pocket, just in terms of potential conflict of interest?
(And Governors races matter because it expands the number of states suing over HCR.)
Posted by: Marty | August 18, 2010 at 04:46 PM
Wow, so Rupert Murdoch telling someone at Newscorp isn't the same as an NBC exec giving 180k out of his own pocket, just in terms of potential conflict of interest?
I'm not sure what that means "Rupert telling someone..."
Of course a company acting as a company is different than its employees working as individuals.
Further, Comcast is not a news organization! That's kind of important.
And no one suggested that Comcast's execs are not supportive of Obama - or Dems.
But people actually argued that Fox News is not a GOP surrogate.
Posted by: Eric Martin | August 18, 2010 at 04:52 PM
Marty is an odd duck. I am not sure whether it is a deliberate obtuseness in an attempt to annoy, or whether his head is an intellectual and moral void.
Rupert Murdoch did not make an individual donation to a political organization. A news corporation donated $1 million from the corporate coffers to elect republican governors.
Posted by: Tyro | August 18, 2010 at 04:57 PM
Wow, so Rupert Murdoch telling someone at Newscorp isn't the same as an NBC exec giving 180k out of his own pocket, just in terms of potential conflict of interest?
I suppose it's also worth pointing out that the story Marty linked to did not show an "NBC" exec making a 180k donation out of his own pocket.
It showed a Comcast exec doing so. And, again, Comcast is not a news organization. Unlike News Corp.
Posted by: Eric Martin | August 18, 2010 at 05:02 PM
"I suppose it's also worth pointing out that the story Marty linked to did not show an "NBC" exec making a 180k donation out of his own pocket."
Sorry Eric you are correct, I was in a rush between other things. The NBC exec only donated 76k of his own money and NBC is a network that seems to do news.
It might also matter that News Corp could have spread that million around the 26 races and it would have only been 50k contributions. However, I will stipulate that News Corp has a conservative/Republican bias (I assumee you would stipulate MSNBC has a liberal/Democratic bias).
Posted by: Marty | August 18, 2010 at 05:08 PM
Hey Tyro. Please don't talk about Marty that way. It's not nice.
Posted by: Model 62 | August 18, 2010 at 05:19 PM
NBC is a network that seems to do news.
As one may say that Microsoft is a company that seems to do spreadsheet software. It's true, but it's hardly their specialty.
Posted by: Hogan | August 18, 2010 at 05:21 PM
The NBC exec only donated 76k of his own money and NBC is a network that seems to do news.
Again, no, the Comcast exec donated 76k of his own money and Comcast is a cable company.
It might also matter that News Corp could have spread that million around the 26 races and it would have only been 50k contributions.
Not really. That is an enormous amount for a purported media company to spend in any one election cycle in such a partisan fashion (accepting that bigger money tends to come out for Prez races).
I assume you would stipulate MSNBC has a liberal/Democratic bias
I don't consider Joe Scarborough to be a liberal. Nor Pat Buchanan. Not even close. They are more conservative, and more prominent on MSNBC, than any analogue on Fox. Scarborough runs the morning on MSNBC, whereas on Fox...what?
But Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow, yes. Matthews I'd put center left, but he was a big Iraq war cheerleader and has been known to swing to the right with some frequency.
En toto, Fox News is far more ideological than MSNBC when taken as a whole - especially considering the prominence of Scarborough's show.
Posted by: Eric Martin | August 18, 2010 at 05:23 PM
(I assumee you would stipulate MSNBC has a liberal/Democratic bias).
If Eric won't, I will. MSNBC gives 3 hours of its morning to flaming liberal Joe Scarborough. It follows that with an hour of the raging leftie Chuck Todd. Midday, borderline communist Mrs. Alan Greenspan does an hour. Late afternoon features an hour with Dylan Ratigan who is from left field. At 5 and 7, we get a host so beloved by the liberal blogger Digby that she fondly calls him Tweetie.
Weekends are the worst: hour after hour of prisons and cops documentaries. "Reality" has SUCH a liberal bias.
Ed Schulz, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow are of course just as viciously partisan as Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity. Never, ever, will you hear Schulz, Olbermann, or Maddow criticize the Muslim commie fascist in the White House. Unless, you know, you tune in occasionally.
You know what cable channel is REALLY anti-GOP? That damned C-Span. C-Span doesn't "cover" Congress; it broadcasts Congress. Anybody who harbors the lingering delusion that Congressional Republicans are either sane or well-meaning is at great risk of being disabused of it by C-Span.
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | August 18, 2010 at 05:43 PM
Tony makes a fair point: Ed Schulz, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow are liberal, but not necessarily partisan.
They hold Obama's feet to the fire, as well as other Dems, when they act like buffoons/sell outs/spineless politicos.
Posted by: Eric Martin | August 18, 2010 at 05:45 PM
The Simpsons had Fox News' number years ago.
Posted by: SFAFan | August 18, 2010 at 06:10 PM
Bias, I can understand.
But Sean Hannity licking the faces of far-right Republican operatives on the air seems a little Riefenstahly to me.
I don't care for Republican operatives stuffing the tip jar with one-hundred dollar bills on Fox and Friends either before each commercial break.
And if I have to watch Greta van Susteren simulate oral sex on one more Republican, I'm going to call for a special persecutor.
What's with Republican Presidential candidates getting their own shows on FOX?
I don't recall the Jimmy Carter Hour, or an evening with Al Gore once a week, or Bill Clinton interviewing prospective pizza delivery girls on NBC in the run-up to the 1992 election.
True Democratic President LBJ might as well have had his own show in 1968 courtesy of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, but I don't think he cared for the script, what with the napalm commercials and all.
How bout CNN, though. A bohunk nothing can call a Supreme Court Justice a child molester and a goat-f-bomber and pretty soon he's purveying political commentary on the Communist News Network.
Which kind of gives the lie to the idea that one's later career prospects might be endangered by one's questionable youthful behavior on various social networks.
Posted by: John Thullen | August 18, 2010 at 06:31 PM
Marty is an odd duck. I am not sure whether it is a deliberate obtuseness in an attempt to annoy, or whether his head is an intellectual and moral void.
Can't it be both?
Posted by: Phil | August 18, 2010 at 07:00 PM
JT--should I ever watch Hannity again, I won't be able to do it without the visual you've permanently planted in my brain. Thanks for that. LOL.
Posted by: McKinneyTexas | August 18, 2010 at 07:48 PM
that was an excellent thread-jack.
Posted by: cleek | August 19, 2010 at 07:59 AM
Rachel came up with a list of contributions by MSNBC (I think on Tuesday) claiming that donations to GOPsters and Dems were equal (iirc $105000 to each committee).
Some commenter I read thought that the million in cash is peanuts compared to the free ads (I mean, fair and balanced interviews etc.) Fox provides to GOPsters (and associated loonies) on a daily basis in any case.
Posted by: Hartmut | August 19, 2010 at 08:46 AM
The donations of GE and its affiliates are pretty readily available via Opensecrets, although some of their numbers just don't add up. If you look at GE total and total up the GE affiliates, they don't come to the same number.
That aside, though, the news portion of GE typically donates an order of magnitude less than $1M per year.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | August 19, 2010 at 09:45 AM
What I don't get is why there is even any debate about whether or not Fox has a pro-Republican political agenda. At this point isn't it overwhelmingly self-evident? I get that Fox is somewhat invested in their "fair and balanced brand", and putting up a token protest against accusations of bias is probably mostly for the benefit of people too ignorant to know different or who unconsciously look for any excuse to maintain their bubble. But there has got to be some powerful cognitive dissonance going on in the mind of anyone who tries to argue sincerely that Fox isn't effectively an appendage of the GOP.
I'm tired of making the argument and wasting time digging up any of the thousands of examples of blatant bias and agenda. This is really at the level of arguing whether or not movie theaters concessions are overpriced.
Posted by: Catsy | August 19, 2010 at 11:43 AM
At this point isn't it overwhelmingly self-evident?
Of course it is, Catsy -- and that's why Marty had to resort to tu quoque. "MSNBC is to the left what Fox is to the right" may be absurd and laughable, but "Fox doesn't have a pro-Republican agenda" is so far out there as to leave one suspecting serious mental illness.
Posted by: Uncle Kvetch | August 19, 2010 at 12:18 PM
hello
Posted by: Online | August 19, 2010 at 05:19 PM
Well, from Faux's POV Dems/liberals are by definition unbalanced and they are also unfair to the rich, so naturally to be F&B Faux hase to keep away from them.
Posted by: Hartmut | August 20, 2010 at 05:45 AM