Fox News To Run Media Matters Ad Critical Of News Corp. $1 Million GOP Donation

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by Colby Hall | 7:22 pm, August 31st, 2010

» 24 comments

Politico is reporting that Fox News has agreed to run an advertisement created by media watchdog group Media Matters that is critical of News Corp. donating $1 Million to the Republican Governors Association. Last week Mediaite reported that some voiceover copy in the original iteration of the ad submitted to FNC did not meet the network’s standards and brought into question how serious was MMFA’s intent to run it, suggesting perhaps a very clever ruse to get more publicity. Turns out Media Matters accomplished both – extra publicity and running the ad on Fox News.

Writing for Politico, Keach Hagey reports:

After three rounds of changes, Fox News has agreed to run a Media Matters ad pointing out the cable network’s parent company’s $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association.

“If Media Matters can come up with the money, we’ll take the ad,” a Fox News spokesperson told POLITICO.

A 30-second slot during the top-rated “O’Reilly Factor” costs $35,000, which Media Matters has been trying to raise from its supporters. The nonprofit liberal media watchdog group sent out a fundraising e-mail last week, reprinted by Mediaite, which suggested that the move might be a bluff.

Ari Rabin-Havt, Media Matters’ vice president for research and communications, said the group raised some money from the campaign, though not the full amount. Nevertheless, it was ready to pay for the ad.

“I wanted to run this ad,” he said. “I didn’t go back three times to them for fun.”

Last week, Mediaite spoke exclusively with Fox News EVP of Ad Sales Paul Rittenberg, who said, “We were happy to run the ad and were planning to move forward, but we made the simple request that they change the opening voiceover copy.” Rittenberg continued “The spot that was originally submitted to us opened with ‘And now, a special message from Fox News.’ Not only is that incorrect, but no network would reasonably run an ad that falsely proclaims a statement that they never actually made.”

Rittenberg further explained that there was a smaller, yet still significant, issue with the closing voiceover, which claimed that News Corp. had donated the money to “oppose Democratic Governors this Fall”. Rittenberg said “Again, it was just a matter of being correct. We asked them to change it to ‘Democratic candidates,’ not ‘Democratic Governors’ as it was submitted,” adding “we ask that all ads be as factually accurate as possible.”

The second version of the ad submitted addressed both notes from the network, but the new voiceover still did not meet FNC’s standards, opening with “And now a special message that Fox News prime time hosts refuse to tell you, brought to you by Media Matters for America.” It appears that Fox News did not want to include the opinions of their prime time hosts.

In talking to Rabin-Havt, Mediaite learned that it was very important to Media Matters that the ad convey the fact that this story had received no coverage during Fox News primetime programming. So the approved version now opens with the line “And now, a special message about a story that’s not yet been covered on Fox News primetime, brought to you by Media Matters for America.”

The approved video can be seen below:

Ari Rabin-Havt, fox news, Media Matters, News Corp., Paul Rittenberg, Republican Governors Association

murf

Translation : Fox News is letting the Pop-Warner team play on the SuperBowl field .
fallenchicken

Well it would be a nice change from all the gold and old people ads.
Constantly

media matters staff couldnt get the cocks out of their mouths to redo the voice over? thats hilarious!!
Cubby

Um, of course Fox is okay with it. Do you think it’s going to change any of their viewers’ minds? The Fox Faithful are downright religious in their devotion to the network.
mlong

I thought the Libs wanted a boycot of ads for FOX?…….Oh well…. I guess Media Matters is also planning running ads about all the money the other news networks parent companies like GE give the Dems right?
BatBoy

Even MM thinks it is a waste of money to advertise on MSNBC and CNN.
lonestar77

Are they going to run a similar ad stating “Obama, Democrats got 88 percent of 2008 contributions by TV network execs, writers, reporters”? I won’t hold my breath.
felixw

mlong said:
I thought the Libs wanted a boycot of ads for FOX?…….Oh well…. I guess Media Matters is also planning running ads about all the money the other news networks parent companies like GE give the Dems right?

Not only was there a liberal boycott of ads on Fox, but Media Matters was in the forefront of it. So they undermine their credibility with the very ad they hope will enhance it. But that is typical of Media Matters — no group works harder, day after day, to show how little integrity they have.
mlong

felixw said:
but Media Matters was in the forefront of it. So they undermine their credibility

Can’t undermine something you never had.
AngelPeters

Very cool.
Arkansas Steve

I wonder how much 30 seconds costs on MSNBC?
I got this $500 check in my pocket. Anybody got something to say?
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

Man, where’d they get that kind of scratch to run the ad? They probably have to go without their SnakPaks for a couple of weeks.
Azarkhan

“Fox News has agreed to run an advertisement created by [Fox News] watchdog group Media Matters”

Of course they’ll run it; Fox News is fair and balanced. Ari, get the lotion. You and the Media Matters staff are about to become very excited.

“Ari Rabin-Havt…said the group raised some money from the campaign, though not the full amount.”

So Leftists are not only stupid, they’re cheap.
LaLydia

Pleeze. Some balance. The parent companies of six major media outlets have all donated anywhere from five to seven figures to political organizations during the 2010 election cycle alone, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. The corporations include:
News Corp. (Fox News Channel, FX, FUEL TV, others)
General Electric (NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo, USA, Bravo, others)
National Amusements (CBS Corp. and Viacom)
Comcast Corp. (G4, E!, others)
Time Warner (CNN, TBS, Cinemax, TNT, Warner Bros./CW, others)
Walt Disney Co. (ABC, ESPN, others)

These organizations have — either through corporate treasuries, sponsored political action committees or both — donated almost $7 million to political action committees and so-called “527 committees” during 2009 and 2010 and nearly $38 million since the 1990 election cycle.

These figures do not reflect additional money donated by individuals who work for the companies.
redleaf

Very savvy on Fox’s part.
it allows them to take the high ground when the tables are turned and some right wing organization wants to excoriate liberals by purchasing a 30 second ad during an opinion program on MSNBC.
NORBIT

So that means it gets played all night on Matthews, Shultz, Olbermann & Maddow too!
notsofast

FOX to MM: Thanks for your support! Let’s do more business!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Westover/1496648721 Tony Westover

What the hell, might as well take George Soros’ Nazi money if he’s going to throw it away anyway.
TeaBagALibby

This is one the greatest EFUs ever, I hope that MM has plenty of lube.
shootfromthehip

1. George Soros was and is JEWISH. So not sure what the hell you are talking about his “nazi money.’
2. Soros has NOTHING TO DO with Media Matters’ daily operations
3. You are a sick person, Tony Westover. Seriously, To be so flip about the darkest chapter in world history when millions suffered and died, including members of Soros’ own family
Pablo

Grow up, shoot.
Constantly

shootfromthehip said:
1. George Soros was and is JEWISH. So not sure what the hell you are talking about his “nazi money.’
2. Soros has NOTHING TO DO with Media Matters’ daily operations
3. You are a sick person, Tony Westover. Seriously, To be so flip about the darkest chapter in world history when millions suffered and died, including members of Soros’ own family

too bad it wasnt 6 million and 1
conservativeslie

America is headed off the deep end with the likes of tony westover and the crew. if you hate America so much Tony, i’ll be you a one way ticket out of here. Leave the country to us liberals to clean up after your mess…but we won’t let you back once we kick you out.
PureFreedom

This is great…. Fox makes 35k the ad is crap … no one will care…and last of all it shows how hypocritical the liberals are by trying to tell business not to advertise on Fox but they go and do it themselves.

What a bunch of idiots!