Fox News silent on News Corp.’s huge donation to GOP
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 19th, 2010 4:46 am by HL
Fox News silent on News Corp.’s huge donation to GOP
Following reports that Fox News’ parent company News Corp. donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, Fox News has not mentioned the contribution, according to searches of the TVEyes and Nexis databases. Several other news outlets have covered the donation, which is reportedly “one of the biggest ever given by a media organization.”
Fox News, FoxNews.com silent on News Corp.’s donation
News Corp.’s contribution reportedly “one of the biggest ever given by a media organization.” On August 16, Bloomberg reported on March 6, 2009, that according to Glenn Beck, in a meeting with him, Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes “shared a message of his own: The country faced tough times, he said, and Fox News was one of the only news outlets willing to challenge the new administration.” From the article:
“I wanted to meet with Roger and tell him, ‘You may not want to put me on the air. I believe we are in dire trouble, and I will never shut up,’ ” said the conservative radio host.
But before Beck could say anything, Ailes shared a message of his own: The country faced tough times, he said, and Fox News was one of the only news outlets willing to challenge the new administration.
“I see this as the Alamo,” Ailes said, according to Beck. “If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side of the camera until the last shot is fired, we’d be fine.”
That couldn’t have suited Beck more. In making the jump to the top-rated cable news channel from HLN, where he had a show for two years, he hoped to alert more people to one of his consuming fears: that the government’s handling of the economic crisis is ushering in an era of socialism.
Fox News executive: Fox is “voice of opposition on some issues.” A March 23, 2009, report on NPR’s Media Circus featured clips of Fox News vice president for programming Bill Shine saying of Fox News: “There were a couple of people who basically wrote about our demise come last November, December, and were, I guess, rooting for us to go away. … With this particular group of people in power right now, and the honeymoon they’ve had from other members of the media, does it make it a little bit easier for us to be the voice of opposition on some issues?”
Fox News hosts and contributors have raised millions for GOP. Fox News hosts and contributors — including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Karl Rove, Dick Morris, Sean Hannity and Rick Santorum — strongly criticized Fox & Friends for a “softball” interview with Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle as being “rife with inaccuracies, softball questions and poor research on the part of the producers and hosts.” Fox & Friends has routinely interviewed Republican congressional candidates and provided them with a platform to promote their campaigns, aiding them with leading questions and statements.
