US News’s Zuckerman: I Don't Give to Politicians; Records Show He Has a Dozen Times

Photo of Jeff Poor.

It's not unusual for journalists to attempt to distance themselves from the appearance of political ties, especially when trying not to be perceived as biased. But saying you do and actually doing are two separate things.

U.S. News & World Report Editor-in-Chief and chairman of Boston Properties (NYSE:BXP) Mort Zuckerman was asked about donating money to Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton's fading campaign by Huffington Post blogger and MSNBC "Morning Joe" regular John Ridley on the May 9 "Morning Joe."

"I wish I could make a contribution, but I'm in the world of journalism and I can't, but thank you for the offer," Zuckerman said.

Maybe Zuckerman forgot, but his conflict of interest statement hasn't stopped him from donating in the past - the recent past. According to OpenSecrets.org, a Web site maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics that tracks campaign contributions, Zuckerman has given $26,700 to individual campaign from 1995 to as recently as December 2007.

More than half that money was donated to Democratic candidates. The exceptions were $10,000 to former-Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman.(I-Conn.) and $1,000 in 1995 donated to Sen. John Warner (R-Va.).Lieberman and Warner have co-sponsored global warming legislation to push a cap-and-trade bill in Congress.

Zuckerman has been portrayed as an economic prophet by the media. In the MSNBC segment, he warned that high oil prices "represent a huge threat to the basic economic security of this country." He was interviewed on the March 18 "NBC Nightly News" and was reported to have said these were the worst economic times of his lifetime.


Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

they can't get away with it any more

Lies, lies, lies, and cover ups. The problem is that so much is so readily available that they constantly get tripped up in their lying. It is a new day and they don't get it.

amazing

It is rather amazing how he can look into the camera and lie. I agree with you that the new media has passed a lot of people like him. (Hillarys sniper fire is great example)

Mort, Mort, Mort

Old Morty is such an effete snob he may actually think no would dare fact check his claim. The other possibility is that Morty is such an effete snob he may think it's his God given right to tell bald faced lies the unwashed masses are obligated to accept. Then again, I don't know about that "God" part.

And his middle name is NOT even Clinton ;-)

..."he may think it's his God given right to tell bald faced lies the unwashed masses are obligated to accept."

Off topic, but whenever I

Off topic, but whenever I hear this guy's name I can't help thinking of "Zuckerman's Famous Pig" from Charlottes Web....it is Friday, right?

You know, I heard this

You know, I heard this early this morning, when Zuckerman said this it made me recall back in the nineties sometime there was a few reports that Hillary was working with Zuckerman on getting a toe-hold of the press of some fashion with him, I tried googling this, came up blank, a lot of interesting things came up, but nothing hit on what I wanted...anyway...just wanted to throw that in.

He is no non political supporter..that's for sure.

"Never murder your opponent when he is committing suicide." ~ W. Churchill

Hooray for the internet!

We seem to be capturing lots of "big fish" lately ;-) 

Their "audacity" to think we wouldn't bother to check just boggles my mind...guess they "hope" it will all just magically disappear when we click on Search ;-)