I heard about a very interesting story today, that although being a couple days old I couldn't find diaried here. Apparently a TV Industry trade site called
tvpredictions.com has done some digging and found some suspicious donations by News Corp employees to Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. The whole story is worth a read, but here are the opening paragraphs:
Special Report
Does Rupert Murdoch's DIRECTV
Own Sen. Ted Stevens?
The powerful lawmaker pushes for an anti-cable TV provision after being showered with oddly timed campaign contributions from Murdoch employees.
By Phillip Swann
Washington, D.C. (July 10, 2006) -- Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is pushing legislation that could give the Rupert Murdoch owned-DIRECTV a huge advantage over the cable TV industry.
Stevens has not explained why he supports the legislation, but TVPredictions.com has learned that nearly 10 percent of the senator's 2005-2006 individual campaign contributions have come from employees of companies owned by Murdoch, such as News Corp., Fox and DIRECTV.
In addition:
* On one day alone (June 6, 2005), Murdoch employees gave $28,000 to Stevens' campaign, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
* Of the 38 total Murdoch employees who have donated to Stevens, 27 of them have not contributed to any other candidate in this election cycle; most of the remaining 11 have donated to liberal Democrats. Stevens is a conservative Republican. (Corporations often 'encourage' their most loyal employees to donate to certain candidates to take advantage of an election law loophole; see below.)
* News Corp. -- and employees who work for News Corp-owned companies -- has donated more money to Stevens' campaign than any other company, according to a TVPredictions.com analysis of the FEC records. (Stevens is up for re-election in 2008.)
Federal campaign law prohibits a company from contributing more than $5,000 to a single candidate per election. But the law permits each company employee to donate up to $2100 individually, with no limits on total company employee contributions. This loophole allows a company to significantly increase its total contributions to -- and influence with -- a single lawmaker.
Interestingly enough the home page for the site says that he will be appearing on Fox News today at 3:45 EDT, though I am not sure if this will be the topic or not.