Wednesday, October 6, 2010

On the Payroll

What do Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum have in common? (Well, I'm sure a lot of other things but...) They're all paid contributors to Fox News and they are all likely 2012 Republican Presidential candidates.

As Politico asks, how can the news outlet cover these candidates in an unbiased manner when they work for Fox News? And how can other news outlets cover the candidates if they have exclusive contracts only to appear on Fox News? Fox News says these politicians will have to end their contracts when they officially declare themselves. But why would you bother declaring yourself if you can get all sorts of great publicity on Fox News?

As Paul Krugman points out, Fox News has abandoned all "pretense of being nonpartisan."

Nobody who was paying attention has ever doubted that Fox is, in reality, a part of the Republican political machine; but the network — with its Orwellian slogan, “fair and balanced” — has always denied the obvious. Officially, it still does. But by hiring those G.O.P. candidates, while at the same time making million-dollar contributions to the Republican Governors Association and the rabidly anti-Obama United States Chamber of Commerce, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox, is signaling that it no longer feels the need to make any effort to keep up appearances.
I am not surprised, but nevertheless dismayed at how our political system continues to be purchased by corporations, and how the majority of the country is apparently okay with this! I am of course particularly embarrassed considering, as you may know, my company provides the polling services for Fox News. And yet we consider ourselves to be an objective research company. I think all these pretenses are continuing to slip away.

P.S. I just read an article that posting about politics and religion is one of the top ways to become unfriended on Facebook. So unfriend at will :)

1 comment:

Karen said...

It's true. I have well, not unfriended, but hidden posts from certain people on Facebook for this. Lucky for you, you're safe.