Countdown host Keith Olbermann has just been indefinitely suspended for donating money to three Democratic campaigns, and thereby violating MSNBC policy. MSNBC president Phil Griffin says he learned of the contributions last night; it was first reported by Politico in a piece published this morning.
A quick search through a Center for Responsive Politics database on OpenSecrets.org of political contributions reveals he’s not the only journalist to put himself in murky territory. (More on that murkiness, from CJR here.)
Here are just a few journalists and media professionals, chosen un-scientifically, who show up in the database. (Note: the positions/employers that people specified at the time of their donations may have since changed.)
-Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of Science Magazine - $2,400 to Arlen Specter (D-Penn.), $300 to the DSCC
-Jesse Angelo, managing editor of the New York Post - $3,400 to Jack Conway
-Herman Cain, Cox Radio host - $13,600 to five Republican candidates
-Kelley Carter, editor at Time Inc. - $4,600 to Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.)
-Christopher Hayes of The Nation, and tonight’s fill-in host of MSNBC’s Countdown *[Update: Nope, MSNBC changed its mind on that.] - $250 to Josh Segall (D-Ala.)
-Seymour Hersh, freelance journalist - $1,000 to Walt Minnick (D-Idaho)
-Harold Huggins - reporter at The Tennesean and sports writer at Nashville City Paper - $2,925 to several Republican candidates and the NRSC
-Michael Kinsley - former co-host on CNN’s Crossfire, founding editor of Slate, now columnist at Politico - $500 to Mickey Kaus (D-Calif.)
-Elizabeth Lack - contributing editor of Vanity Fair - $2,000 to Alan Khazei (D-Mass.) and $4,800 to Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.)
-Bethany McLean, contributing editor of Vanity Fair - $2,000 to David Hoffman (D-Ill.)
-Martin Peretz, managing editor of The New Republic - $4,800 to Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
-Katha Pollitt, writer at The Nation - $500 to Thomas Geoghegan (D-Ill.)
-Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue - $30,400 to the DNC, $2,000 to Timothy Bishop (D-N.Y.)
-William Zwecker, reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times - $1,000 to Alexander Giannouilias (D-Ill.)
*[Update: This list previously included Camilla Cowan, who was identified as an editor of The Dallas Morning News. The CRP database’s info was outdated in this instance, as she was not ever an editor, and has not been employed there since 2001. Her name has been removed from this post. Andrew Katchen, formerly of the New York Daily News, was also previously listed in error, and his name has been removed as well.]
Hayes's contribution, iirc, is to an old classmate's campaign. Kinsley's p*ss*ng away money on Kaus can similarly be attributed to loyalty, while Pollitt's support for Geoghegan (who came in 7th in the primary, again iirc) was certainly no secret.
What's surprising may not be how many items you can find, but how few. Certainly compared to the Corporations themselves (GE/Comcast for Olbermann, Cox Communications, etc.) the personal contributions are drops in the proverbial bucket.
But--as MSNBC showed today--taking money from shareholders is never a bad idea for management.
#1 Posted by Ken Houghton, CJR on Fri 5 Nov 2010 at 03:59 PM
I didn't see that Sy Hersh-Walt Minnick connection coming. Apparently they met while Minnick worked in the Nixon White House, though according to Wikipedia he was on the Domestic Policy Council and OMB, which wasn't exactly Hersh's beat.
There sure are a lot of old people in Washington.
#2 Posted by Greg Marx, CJR on Fri 5 Nov 2010 at 04:34 PM
Hmm, 13 of the 16 donors gave to Democratic candidates, about 80% . . . My informal '80 percent rule' strikes again! Seems like all the surveys of partisan affiliation or campaign contributions work out to a 75% or 80% Democratic majority. I got to thinking about this after Esquire's issue a few years ago which endorsed a candidate in every single Congressional district, which produced, in my quick scan, a desire for a 75% Democratic Congress, or about what FDR had at the zenith of the New Deal.
Being of a 'quantify everything' turn of mind, I started meditating on my unscientific observation that a 75% or 80% rating by Americans for Democratic Action marks a Democrat as a 'moderate' in the vocabulary of the national political media. Right in the middle, with Katie Couric, and The New York Times. You have to go to about 100% as a Democrat to get called a 'liberal' or, god forbid, a 'leftist'. So you can have a dissenting Democratic view on, say, gun control, or abortion rights, or some 'white liberal' issue, and earn a reputation as a 'maverick'.
Odd but telling vocabulary note: there are 'conservative' Democrats (i.e., with ADA ratings under 80%). But there are no 'liberal' Republicans, even if their ACU ratings are under 80%. There are only 'moderate' Republicans in this category. At the same time, the words 'moderate' and 'Democrat' are seldom used together . . .
Nit-picking? NPR's ombudsman recently surveyed past stories in response to a consumer complaining that NPR reporters were much quicker to label politicians 'ultra-conservative' than 'ultra-liberal'. Alicia found that NPR had indeed used the 'ultra' label 42 times with 'conservative', and only 8 times as a 'liberal' prefix. In other words, by an 84%-16% margin . . . Close enough to my theory!
The math of this is that politicians rated 50% in ADA or ACU ratings are to your Right if you are a subject of the '80 percent rule', though 50-50, swing voter types are the genuine centrists - remember, the 'center' votes Republican as well as Democratic. Those with less than 50% ADA ratings, i.e., Republicans, are further away from you, the 80% news staff, on issues than a gaggle of down the line, 100% ADA liberals. Gee, you think it ever shows in the framing and vocabulary of charges of 'extremism'?
Per the comments on personal relationships driving the contributions of Kinsley and Hersh . . . well . . . it can be read to confirm the right-wing critique of the political/media echo chamber as a class apart . . . same schools, same social circles, you know? Although I do like Mickey, and Kinsley sometimes surprises.
#3 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 5 Nov 2010 at 05:22 PM
This is ridiculous. First of all, it's a ridiculous double standard since Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan donated to Republicans (and Joe Scarborough even listed "MSNBC/HOST" as his occupation) and are keeping their jobs.
Second, it's a stupid rule. It's one thing if a campaign pays a journalist or pundit, but if the journalist or pundit donates to a campaign, then that's fine. They should disclose it, but it's not like not donating will avoid them having an opinion. Sean Hannity can urge people to donate to Republicans every night, and his company can donate, but somehow if he does it himself, then it's bad? I expect him to put his money where his mouth is and donate. If they were paid by a campaign, then what they say could be affected by them thinking about their next paycheck. But not if they gave money.
Put this another way. Do we think a pundit is biased if they bought Nike shoes? Maybe, but we don't care much. It's only if Nike pays them that we worry, and I think that's right. Getting paid is a much bigger danger for conflict of interest.
#4 Posted by Reid S., CJR on Fri 5 Nov 2010 at 06:04 PM
My informal '80 percent rule' strikes again! Seems like all the surveys of partisan affiliation or campaign contributions work out to a 75% or 80% Democratic majority.
That's because Republicans are 80% more likely to be unfit to hold public office. Pure and simple.
#5 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 5 Nov 2010 at 07:23 PM
@James
No, it's because people who donate to Democrats aren't afraid to disclose; the Republican donors donate to PACs and front groups who keep their donations secret.
#6 Posted by MM, CJR on Fri 5 Nov 2010 at 11:49 PM
"Michael Kinsley - former co-host on CNN’s Crossfire, founding editor of Slate, now columnist at Politico - $500 to Mickey Kaus (D-Calif.)"
Oh, Jesus Christ! xKinsley really is a vacuos idiot. I've always suspected it, but this is the proof.
#7 Posted by brucds, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 12:41 AM
Olbermann was not suspended for any violation of law, he was suspended for violation of work rules.
This is not the right, Fox News, or any other conspiracy, just punishment for someone who did not follow the rules at work.
Just ask Juan Williams about work rules.
#8 Posted by bob, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 07:20 AM
Oh for heaven's sake! I write an openly political column of opinion from the left, for a left magazine. Whatever may be appropriate for just-the-facts-maam reporters in the mainstream media, my situation is different: there is no suggestion that I have secret biasses or am slanting the news to help someone I'm supporting behind the scenes. Anyone who is surprised that I donated to Tom Geoghegan (my old classmate and a writer I have admired for decades, whose campaign I promoted in my column) just hasn't been paying attention. I donated to other individual candidates, as well as to Emily's List's GOTV efforts. What is the problem?
I have no issue with disclosing my donations, btw. (I think it was actually $600 to Tom. Open Secrets doesn't catch everything.)
#9 Posted by Katha Pollitt, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 10:53 AM
James, if I was getting all my news from pro-Democratic sources, I'd probably think the Democrats, proprietors of the economy of the state of California and other stagnating/declining states, were overwhelmingly more competent than GOPsters, too. Actual consumers in places like New Jersey, who get their news also from . . . real life . . . apparently disagree. Between the speeches on housing policy by some politician, and the actual houses I see, I'm going to believe the latter. No one doubts that the Dems, party of academia, media, the legal industry, Hollywod and 'the arts', make a good speech and have great laugh lines. It's the actual outcomes that are the problem sometimes.
#10 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 07:23 PM
"It's the actual outcomes that are the problem sometimes."
And it's the tax cut happy, voodoo economics laffer curve touting, irresponsible and proud of it conservative movement who democrats and liberals have to clean up after.
Seriously, the republicans have shown over the last 30 years that they can't manage their own house and that they rely on Democrats to clean up the mess from their frat parties.
The only thing they have to recommend them is that they are business friendly, and by business friendly we mean bubble friendly, fraud friendly, polluter friendly, war friendly, etc..
Democrats lost because democrats are weak and the economy is devastated, not because the republicans are strong or competent enough to fix what they broke.
#11 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 10:21 PM
Over the last 30 years, the Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress for 12 years, while Republicans have controlled both houses for 10.
But hey, why let the mere facts get in the way of another Thimbilism?
#12 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 7 Nov 2010 at 03:28 PM
Thimbles - usually when one party displaces another, it is because there is a mess. Eisenhower inherited Truman's war in Korea. Nixon inherited the war in Vietnam and a permanent state of police alert in urban areas each long, hot summer, along with rising inflation. Reagan inherited double-digit inflation and interest rates, among other gifts. GW Bush inherited the recession that followed the dot-com crash in the spring of 2000; he also inherited a ticking time-bomb of a plot to attack the World Trade Center - again - which began and advanced under his predecessor.
Obama can certainly claim that he inherited a mess from Bush, but that doesn't give him a blank check. Voters need to see improvement. They haven't really seen it. Obama can only urge people that, you might say, prosperity is just around the corner. He might be right, might not. But blaming things on Bush is losing its pull, especially when one recalls the efforts of Democrats to blame 9/11 on the Bush administration, which had been in office less than 9 months at that point, while the first attack on the WTC by the same breed of activist had occurred fully eight years earlier.
#13 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 8 Nov 2010 at 12:45 PM
Do you people think I am excusing Obama? I'm not. He inherited an economy in a death spiral, a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit, TARP with the first half spent, radicalized opposition, 2 wars, and a regulatory apparatus that republicans had spent 8 years taking a bat to.
That does not excuse his choices in staff and policy. He went with conservative and wall street voices who advised him to kick the financial repair and reform can down a few months until the growing economy healed the nation's ills. Growth does not solve criminal problems, criminal problems impede growth.
Obama should have purged the big banks the way the FDIC has purged the community ones. Instead, he insured they and their management survived intact. Obama, not republicans, is responsible for the 1990's Japanification of the American economy.
http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/11/05/obamas-problem-simply-defined-it-was-the-banks-26159/
But that doesn't mean the republicans, who are even more under the sway of wall street banks and their money, would have done better.
And I don't want to go into Bush and 9-11 AGAIN, but you are misremembering the Democrat reaction to 9-11.
They gave Bush applause and standing ovations. They were for the most part uncritical for 2 years since anyone who questioned the Bush narratives was hounded out of their jobs and spat upon by the media and the public.
It was the 9-11 widows who pressured for the 9-11 commission, it was the testimony of republican-at-the-time Richard Clarke, it was the documentary record that put out the charge of negligence on Bush.
Democrats, with few ostracized exceptions, were Uriah Heepish in nature during this time.
If you really want to get into that, watch the Jersey Girl documentary "9-11 Press for Truth"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=593113413441331586
#14 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 8 Nov 2010 at 07:43 PM
The Democrats gave Bush standing ovations - so did the Republicans applaud FDR after Pearl Harbor. The 9/11 widows unfortunately allowed themselves to become the political property of the Democrats as their inquiries acquired a narrow partisan cast. (BTW, a lot of 9/11 widows supported Bush during the heyday of the Jersey Girls, but you never heard about it.) I agree with you that Bush got two years of favorable coverage after 9/11 - even liberals approved of his invasion of Afghanistan, and still do - but there was no critical press on the Clinton Administration's actions for the years leading up to the event. Only Iraq started the revisionist history. Richard Clarke's prominence didn't occur in a vacuum. The Iraq war had the effect of tainting Bush and his actions re 9/11 ex-post-facto. By 2004 Michael Moore was a welcome campaigner for the Dems.
I recall TIME doing a breathless cover 'expose' laying the blame on Bush only a couple of years after 9/11. It was like Nixon's fall being used to try to prove that Alger Hiss was innocent. The magazine's principal source was obviously none other than Sandy Berger, famous for destroying 9/11 documents in the National Archives - an event that has been played down by the MSM. It's down the memory hole. Bush got favorable after 9/11 - focus groups were said to be very angry at suggestions Bush knew of the coming attack, or could have prevented it - and the MSM to some degree has to take into account public/consumer reaction. But this does not disturb the fact that Bush had been in office only 9 months when 9/11 happened, and this did not stop Democrats in time from trying to blame him for the attacks, while most of the warnings, planning, admission of the attackers to the country, had taken place before Bush ever took office. You keep wanting to change the subject. I can imagine your reaction if the World Trade Center had been attacked in 2001, Bush's first year in office, and then again in Sept. 2009, less than nine months after Obama's team took power. Obama would still be riding a wave of good press, and you would be blaming Bush like a madman, and we both know it.
#15 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 8 Nov 2010 at 08:17 PM
"The 9/11 widows unfortunately allowed themselves to become the political property of the Democrats as their inquiries acquired a narrow partisan cast. (BTW, a lot of 9/11 widows supported Bush during the heyday of the Jersey Girls, but you never heard about it.) "
Jesus. "Political property of the Democrats"? Really? I guess that's what happens when people start stomping their feet over the obstruction Republicans did into the investigations of their husbands' deaths. Have a conscience, dude.
"You keep wanting to change the subject. I can imagine your reaction if the World Trade Center had been attacked in 2001, Bush's first year in office, and then again in Sept. 2009, less than nine months after Obama's team took power. Obama would still be riding a wave of good press, and you would be blaming Bush like a madman, and we both know it."
You act as if there isn't a precedent.
The Deep Water Horizon blowout occurred a year and a half after Obama took office. Did I blame Bush? Yes, his regulatory approach was partially responsible as the Minerals Management Services sex and drugs scandals come to mind, but I primarily blamed Obama.
Nobody forced him to appoint Ken Salazar or keep many of the Bush appointees, nobody forced him to adopt "Drill baby drill" just before the accident, nobody forced his government agencies to lie about the damage on BP's behalf, nobody forced him to leave BP in charge of the cleanup management, nobody forced him to allow BP to use solvents that his own EPA demanded to be stopped, nobody forced him to dip his own children into toxic water, nobody forced him to reopen those waters for human consumption when evidence of toxic substances have been found in fish and crabs, etc...
Obama is responsible for inadequately handling his crisises just as Bush is responsible for his. It is the actions or non-actions of those responsible that makes up the measure of blame. It takes objective investigation, not on partisan point keeping / blame deflecting. I don't expect you to understand the point since investigation, according to you, makes you the "political property" of one party or another.
The actions of the republicans during their time in power were horrific and incompetent. The record shows they lead to two wars and global destabilization, the over leveraged and under regulated financial system that collapsed in 2007-2008, and unsustainable tax cuts in the face of banana republic inequality. And that's not touching the corruption and scandals we're aware of involving drugs, sex, bribes, rape, and the wrongful termination of individuals who investigated such things (I suppose they became just more political property). That's the past and future of the republican party. The democrats just don't behave on the scale of the republicans.
#16 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 9 Nov 2010 at 01:42 AM
I was laid off from the DMN in 2001 after working part time for many years as a copy editor in the features dept.
I am not now nor have I ever been Editor of the DMN.
#17 Posted by Camilla Cowan, CJR on Thu 11 Nov 2010 at 03:17 PM
Hi Camilla, I'll change the post to reflect that. We were going on the info in the Center for Responsive Politics database (link above), which is clearly incomplete. It listed you as "Dallas Morning News - Editor" as of 9/09. In any case, fixing now. Thanks.
#18 Posted by Lauren Kirchner, CJR on Thu 11 Nov 2010 at 03:27 PM
Thank you very much.
#19 Posted by Camilla Cowan, CJR on Thu 11 Nov 2010 at 03:36 PM