Since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010, the broadcast networks have been whining about corporate influence in politics — but not right now.
The media often attack the conservative Koch brothers for “trying to influence the political process.” They similarly complained that the Supreme Court was “opening the floodgates for big money” when the Citizens United ruling allowed businesses to make unlimited political donations.
But now that elected officials in Georgia and North Carolina have been silenced by corporate pressure, the broadcast networks have reversed course. Rather than being upset by the influence of corporations, broadcast news reports have heralded it.
After more than 100 companies, including NBC’s parent companies, threatened to boycott Georgia, North Carolina and Mississippi over new religious freedom laws, the media dropped their opposition to “big corporate money,” and supported the “growing backlash” from America’s “big businesses.”
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Between March 24, 2016, and April 12, 2016, ABC, NBC, and CBS rushed to cover the response by “corporate America” to the “controversial,” “divisive” religious freedom and privacy bills in Georgia, North Carolina and Mississippi. Together, the networks aired 21 separate stories; 11 on the morning news shows and 10 during the evening news programs. Those figures do not include additional network stories covering celebrities including Bruce Springsteen who were boycotting the states.
In Georgia and Mississippi, the proposed laws would protect the religious freedom of private organizations and individuals, by not forcing clergy to perform same-sex marriages, and allowing religious doctors to opt out of performing sex change surgeries. The North Carolina bill would require all people to use the bathroom corresponding with their gender at birth, in order to protect the privacy of women and children.
Networks Side With Corporations to Bash Religious Freedom Bills
Rather than criticize corporations for getting involved in state political issues, the broadcast networks were supportive of the companies promoting a liberal agenda. None of the network news reports said anything negative about corporate manipulation, nor did they criticize any of the companies for trying to force their will in politics, despite having vocally opposed corporate meddling in politics for years.
“American Airlines and PayPal are among corporations critical of a new law in North Carolina that they say will lead to discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgender people,” CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley declared on March 24. “Georgia is considering a similar law and feeling similar heat,” he added.
NBC Nightly News not only favorably covered the corporate boycott, it also had a hand in it. On March 25, NBC disclosed that its parent companies, Comcast and NBCUniversal, had joined the corporate boycott trying to strong-arm Georgia’s governor into vetoing the religious freedom bill.
“The NFL, NBC, Coca-Cola and Apple among a laundry list of others calling for a veto of the bill, threatening to pull business from Georgia,” NBC News national correspondent Miguel Almaguer continued.
When Georgia’s governor vetoed the bill three days later, NBC Nightly News gleefully declared the corporate bullying had forced the governor’s hand by putting “Georgia’s economic viability on the line.”
The same night, ABC News correspondent Steve Osunsami also defended the bullying, and gushed that “corporate America felt the law would legalize discrimination against gay residents, and the governor agreed.”
None of the networks said anything about whether corporations should have the economic power to force entire states to adopt their liberal, pro-gay agendas. That was the opposite of the way the networks covered the prospect of businesses or businessmen promoting conservative values.
Networks Attack Corporate Influence Only When it is Conservative
Since at least 2010, the networks appeared to oppose corporate and big money influence in politics. But what they’ve really opposed was the prospect of of conservative influence, from either companies, or wealthy businessmen like the Koch brothers.
In 2010, when the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United found that the first amendment protects businesses’ right to contribute to political PACs, the networks cried foul.
A senior producer for MSNBC wrote a scathing review of Citizens United on NBCNews.com. In it, he sided with Obama, who warned that big businesses would now “marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."
CBS Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford echoed that same fear in a Jan. 21, 2010, Evening News broadcast saying, “Corporations and unions can just spend unlimited amounts of money on negative campaign ads, more than the candidates themselves can afford.”
Crawford fretted that candidates could get “drowned out” by the money spent by corporations and “lose complete control of the message.”
Around the same time, NBC’s Meet the Press host David Gregory predicted in an NBC Today that “you’re going to have union money, big corporate money that’s going to be -- come flooding in.”
According to Gregory, the corporate influence would lead to “the very business in Washington that a lot of people are so unhappy about.”
But now that elected officials in Georgia and North Carolina have been silenced by corporations, the networks have forgotten their warnings against corporate influence, and their hatred of big money (like the Koch Brothers) in politics.
ABC Good Morning America characterized David and Charles Koch as “masters at trying to keep secret both their political and business dealings,” on Oct. 7, 2011.
CBS New correspondent Norah O’Donnell joined in on the Koch-hating in February 2012. While covering Obama fundraisers for Evening News, she sympathized with their worry that the Koch brothers “talked about steering up to $200 million to conservative groups by Election Day.”
“The Koch brothers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to influence the political process,” O’Donnell complained on May 10, 2013, CBS This Morning.
