MSNBC Pres. Asks For Examples Of On-Air Fund-raising; Inevitably, Examples Found

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how the media works now.

After we and other outlets picked up on the almost literal fund-raising going on during a Sean Hannity interview, MSNBC President Phil Griffin made a challenge in the New York Times, to “show me an example of us fund-raising.” Examples = found.

Johnny Dollar took the challenge and came up with some very clear examples. Most of them involve Ed Schultz, and a few examples are interviews with frequent guest of The Ed Show, Rep. Alan Grayson. Schultz, who has a segment called Psycho Talk on his show, allowed Grayson to give out his website several times during interviews. Or how about this exchange with Ohio Democratic candidate Justin Coussoule:

SCHULTZ: I say tonight that the DNC needs to filter money into Justin Coussoule‘s race to go after John Boehner. The Republicans have done a great job taking down leaders in the past like Tom Daschle. They got a lot of national money in South Dakota on that one. Thune beat him. I don‘t know why, we don‘t do the same thing on our side, we‘ll going to have you on again, Mr. Coussoule. Good luck to you. What‘s your website?
COUSSOULE: Coussouleforcongress.com, Ed, or beatboehner.com, that will get you to us.
SCHULTZ: Beatboehner, I like that one. Good to have you with us.

The evidence is pretty clear. Maybe it hasn’t happened blatantly during prime time hours, but Ed Schultz, who helps run political rallies and spoke about torching his workplace, has certainly allowed for fund-raising during his 6pmET program. “If it is inappropriate for a cable news channel to let politicos solicit money, volunteers, or whatever on its air, then it’s inappropriate for everyone, not just Fox,” writes Johnny Dollar. “But have you heard anything from Media Matters, Think Progress, and the other ‘media watchdogs’ about MSNBC’s fund-raising?”

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