Former ThinkProgress blogger Lee Fang came at Hillary Clinton from the left on Glenn Greenwald’s blog The Intercept. The article was headlined “Television News Network Lobbyists Are Fundraising for Hillary Clinton.”
Fang mentioned the National Association of Broadcasters lobby, which has lobbyists who fundraise for Hillary and for Marco Rubio. His argument is that the NAB and others oppose campaign reforms like providing free air time to candidates. But there’s more:
CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, is represented on Capitol Hill by Steve Elmendorf, an adviser to Clinton during her 2008 campaign, who is also known as “one of Washington’s top lobbyists.” He’s lobbied on a number of issues important for media companies like CNN, including direct-to-consumer advertising policy.
Elmendorf, according to disclosures, has raised at least $141,815 for Clinton’s 2016 bid for the presidency.
Comcast, the parent company of NBC Universal, which includes cable networks NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC, has a number of lobbyists on retainer who are working to raise cash for the Clinton campaign, including Justin Gray, Alfred Mottur, Ingrid Duran and Catherine Pino. [The last two were just "married" by Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor.]
Much of the $5 billion expected to be spent over the course of the 2016 presidential election cycle will be on cable and network news advertisements. The election-related spending bonanza is singularly boosting the profit margins of many media companies, as we’ve reported.
“Super PACs may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS,” Les Moonves, president and chief executive of CBS, memorably said [in 2012]....
On an investor conference call this year, Moonves, the CBS president, predicted “strong growth with the help of political spending” given that the “2016 presidential election is right around the corner and, thank God, the rancor has already begun.”
Fang thinks Bernie Sanders has been shortchanged by the media, and his source, former MSNBC producer Jeff Cohen, thinks Hillary has received softer coverage than Sanders. Hillary's received much more coverage, but it's been much more negative than Bernie's.
Fang forwarded an outdated complaint from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting that Meet the Press “mentioned Clinton 16 times in the first 17 episodes of the year while failing to invite or discuss Bernie Sanders once.” This is a little lame considering Sanders didn’t declare his candidacy until May...after the first 17 episodes of the year. Sanders did appear on the program on September 14, 2014 to kick off a "Meet the Candidates" feature.
Since Sanders announced, he's appeared on Meet the Press four times (May 31, August 16, September 13, and October 11).
