No Surprise: Media Execs' Donations Overwhelmingly Favor Obama, Democrats

August 23rd, 2012 7:54 PM

While some sectors of the American economy have changed allegiances this presidential cycle in terms of their donations to the major political parties, one industry that hasn't changed its allegiances is media.

That probably doesn't come as a surprise to readers of this site but the numbers are still interesting nonetheless:

All the major media companies, driven largely by their Hollywood film and television businesses, have made larger contributions to President Obama than to his rival, former Gov. Mitt Romney, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington-based research group that publishes the Open Secrets Web site.

The center’s numbers represent donations by a company’s PAC and any employees who listed that company as their employer.

Even companies whose news outlets are often perceived as having a conservative bias have given significantly more money to Mr. Obama. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, for example, has contributed $58,825 to Mr. Obama’s campaign, compared with $2,750 to Mr. Romney. The conglomerate, which owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and the 20th Century Fox studios, gave roughly the same amount to Mr. Romney’s Republican primary competitors Rick Perry and Ron Paul as it did to Mr. Romney.

The report above comes from a New York Times article which amusingly enough turns a story about how media companies donate overwhelmingly to Democrats into a way to bash Rupert Murdoch. That's not entirely surprising given his ownership of the Wall Street Journal, the Times's chief competitor.

Click over to the link to see how difficult it is for the Times to grasp the notion that Murdoch and his News Corporation execs have given more to Democrats than to Republicans. You can almost see puzzled Times editors reading the piece trying to understand how the man who created the cable network they believe to be a Republican mouthpiece could have a company that donates more cash to Democrats than the GOP.

More than half of the piece (274 of the 566 total words) is about Murdoch.

Hat tip: NB reader Steve.