Conflict of Interest – follow the money.
Once Senator John McCain and the RNC began circumventing the McCain/Feingold limits via the creation of the “McCain Victory ’08 Fund” with its $70,000 per individual donations 
they really left presumptive Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama with no reason to keep extending his offer to limit campaign spending by accepting public financing. They sprang into faux outrage, of course, ready to accuse him of a flip-flop despite the fact they’d not accepted Obama’s conditional offer. Follow the money, not the spin, and you discover that this has gone virtually unreported. The commercial media outlets have a conflict of interest; reporting on the McCain fund undermines their profits.
Here’s the simple truth:
The more money McCain (or Obama) has to spend, the more the media stands to earn on selling commercials. Selling not only to the two campaigns, but to PACs and 527s and anybody else who will buy air-time. The media clearly have a vested interest in not just ratings, but more so in the demand for commercials, and so the closer the race – and the more money the candidates (or parties, or 527s, etc.) raise – the more money the media outlets make by selling. Why report on the RNC’s funding success as they skirt the intent of McCain~Feingold on McCain’s behalf? Much better business to take advantage of all that cash, not cut off the former campaign reformer now laying golden eggs. It’s their bottom line at stake, same as it ever was.
Talk about a conflict of interest.Was it big oil money pouring in, as the sudden change in McCain’s stand on drilling in environmentally sensitive areas suggests? How will we ever know? There’s no benefit to a commercial news outlet in uncovering the source of the money – they are just trying to get their piece of it.
Trackbacks
- Will commercial media continue to echo McCain’s misinformation? « Audacity
- I’m Joe the plumber, and I’ve decided who I’ll vote for. « political FAQ
- What would Barack Obama do if elected president? « Audacity
- The word from Pollster.com « Audacity
- The anti-lobbyist
- common sense budget solutions should trump the sound-bites
- Pawlenty knows politics. « political FAQ
Exactly! Well said. McCain feigns outrage – it is so phony. We all know that if he believed he could raise more than the $84M he would opt out of public financing. What no one is reporting on is WHY isn’t McCain tapping into the fat cat republican fundraisers? They have always raised more than the democrats? Why is McCain not pusuing republican fat cats? Have they abandoned him or is he just inept?
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Great post.
A lot of us forget that the media is not in business to deliver content to us. Instead, the media is in the business of delivering advertising. The “content” is just filler in between the ads.
Tobacco companies didn’t sell cigarettes. They delivered nicotine. The cigarette was just the vehicle for delivery.
Content, for the media, is just the vehicle to package and and deliver the ads to the consumer.
See also:
What to make of the GOP capturing the “Kennedy” Senate seat in MA. There’s a lot of spin, but it’s another case of follow the money.