Fox News To Air Media Matters Ad Critical Of News Corp GOP Donation Tonight
In what can only be called a less-than-thrilling dénouement to a sophomoric back and forth between media outlet and watchdog, Fox News will be airing a Media Matters spot that informs the audience of the $1 Million donation by FNC’s parent company News Corp to the Republican Governor’s Association. After numerous backs-and-forth between the two over standards — and allegations of bluffing over publicity — it appears that the spot will finally air this evening during the The O’Reilly Factor. Turns out in this final resolution, both outlets can reasonably claim to be the victor.
First a bit of background for those playing at home:
Last month, news broke that Fox News had agreed to run an advertisement created by media watchdog group Media Matters that criticizes News Corp’s $1 Million donation to the Republican Governors Association. The news came after some questioned whether Media Matters was ever really intent on purchasing the air time. When contacted, Media Matters said “We’re cutting a check!”
Well it appears the check was indeed cut. Writing for the Plum Line for The Washington Post, Greg Sargent reports:
Fox has informed Media Matters the spot will run tonight during Bill O’Reilly’s show, a Media Matters spokesperson tells me. In order to get Fox to agree to run the spot, the ad had to be tweaked several times, and here’s the final version: (video is below)
The final spot directly mentions that Fox has mostly avoided covering the dust up over the $1 million donation. “And now, a special message about a story that’s not yet been covered on Fox News primetime,” the narrator says.
Fox’s unwillingness to air the ad turned into a bit of a soap opera, with the network repeatedly refusing to air the spot because of various objections to the script. An earlier version Fox objected to, for instance, accused Fox hosts of refusing to share this news with viewers. This has now been changed to a mere neutral observation that Fox primetime hasn’t covered this news.
When reached for comment, Paul Rittenberg , Fox News’ Executive Vice President, Advertising Sales said, “we are glad Media Matters has recognized the value of the upscale Fox News audience and is willing to pay rate-card to reach it.”
So the scorecard reads as follows. Media Matters is happy with the resolution because, as Sargent writes, “Fox primetime viewers will finally learn that fair and balanced Fox News’s parent company gave $1 million “to oppose Democratic candidates for office this November.”
Meanwhile, Fox News just got $35,000 richer, which may seem a pittance for an international media corporation, but is all the sweeter seeing as it comes from the very the company that seems only to exist to repeatedly report on how Fox News is basically evil.
Can we just call this win-win?
