The media stopped following the money: CONFLICT of INTEREST

Was it big oil money pouring into the "McCain Victory '08 Fund," 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 RNC PAC/527 money...

It got interesting in April, but almost nobody reported it...

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 McCain's funding success? 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.

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Coordinator of GOP St. Paul Nominating Convention quits

Trouble for the RNC's St. Paul convention!

According to an AP story published by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Doug Goodyear, the man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 RNC resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar. Goodyear, chief executive of DCI Group resigned and issued a two sentence statement, after Newsweek reported online was he paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Myanmar's junta. According to Newsweek, Justice Department lobbying records show DCI pushed to "begin a dialogue of political reconciliation" with the regime and led a public relations campaign to improve the junta's image.

Newsweek said the firm drafted news releases praising Myanmar's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing claims by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses.



The Newsweek article also reported that some of Goodyear's allies worry that worry the choice of Goodyear could fuel perceptions that McCain is surrounded by lobbyists. DCI Group earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients, the report said.

Newsweek further reported DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent" expenditure campaigns by so-called 527 groups, the kind of operations that McCain has denounced in his battle for campaign finance reform.
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