For years, national media stars have lined up to speak or moderate debates at the fall Clinton Global Initiative meetings in New York. Bill Clinton routinely does a round of sappy TV interviews – unless someone messes up the program with a tough question like Fox’s Chris Wallace, who drew Slick Willie’s wrath in 2006.
Media companies also line up to line the Clinton Foundation’s pockets, leading to another big corporate list of conflicts of interest, according to Politico:
NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting and Thomson Reuters are among more than a dozen media organizations that have made charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, the foundation's records show.
The list also includes mass media groups like Comcast, Time Warner and Viacom, as well a few notable individuals, including Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecom magnate and largest shareholder of The New York Times Company, and James Murdoch, the chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox. Both Slim and Murdoch have given between $1 million to $5 million, respectively.
Clintonistas point to the Murdoch money and the donations (and pro-foundation fulminations) of Newsmax boss Christopher Ruddy, who used to accuse the Clintons of the most nefarious murders, and say “See? The foundation’s nonpartisan!”
Politico's list is below:
$1,000,000-$5,000,000
Carlos Slim
Chairman & CEO of Telmex, largest New York Times shareholder
James Murdoch
Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox
Newsmax Media
Florida-based conservative media network
Thomson Reuters
Owner of the Reuters news service
$500,00-$1,000,000
News Corporation Foundation
Philanthropic arm of former Fox News parent company
$250,000-$500,000
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publisher
Richard Mellon Scaife (now deceased)
Owner of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
$100,000-$250,000
Abigail Disney
Documentary filmmaker
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Howard Stringer
Former CBS, CBS News and Sony executive
Intermountain West Communications Company
Local television affiliate owner (formerly Sunbelt Communications)
$50,000-$100,000
Bloomberg L.P.
Discovery Communications Inc.
George Stephanopoulos
ABC News chief anchor and chief political correspondent
Mort Zuckerman
Owner of New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report (usnews.com)
Time Warner Inc.
Owner of CNN parent company Turner Broadcasting
$25,000-$50,000
AOL
HBO
Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Presenters of the Golden Globe Awards
Viacom
Owner of Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and other cable networks
$10,000-$25,000
Knight Foundation
Non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting journalism
Public Radio International
Turner Broadcasting
Parent company of CNN
$5,000-$10,000
Comcast
Parent company of NBCUniversal
NBC Universal
Parent company of NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC
Public Broadcasting Service
$1,000-$5,000
Robert Allbritton
Owner of POLITICO parent company Capitol News Group
$250-$1,000
AOL Huffington Post Media Group
Hearst Corporation
Judy Woodruff
PBS Newshour co-anchor and managing editor
The Washington Post Company
