Does Fox News coverage = GOP campaign contribution?
January 26, 2010 5:41 am ET by Eric Boehlert

With its open and aggressive cheerleading — not to mention on-air fundraising — for Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown last week, Fox News crossed yet another threshold in its unabashed transformation into a purely political entity. Now completely turning its back on producing any semblance of independent journalism, Fox News eagerly flaunts its role as GOP kingmaker.

That relentlessly partisan approach continues to raise fundamental questions about what role Fox News plays in our political culture and, thanks to its shameless GOP boosterism, whether the cable channel and its programming should fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Election Commission. Meaning, does Fox News’ gung-ho GOP campaign coverage double as a contribution to the Republican Party, a contribution that should be regulated?

The Commission defines “contribution” to include any gift of money or “anything of value” made for the express purpose of influencing a federal election. A key Commission exemption for decades, though, has been granted to the news media, since they have been seen as “neutral” and not controlled by political interests. Therefore their editorial product could not be considered a “contribution” or “expenditure” to any campaign.

The exemption was created, in the words of the Commission, to ensure “the unfettered right of the newspapers, TV networks, and other media to cover and comment on political campaigns,” which makes perfect sense, since there’s nothing wrong with newspapers endorsing candidates or columnists berating incumbents. The exception has allowed journalists (and more recently bloggers) to report and pontificate about campaigns without having to worry about federal finance laws and whether their editorial efforts cross the line into candidate contributions.

That approach worked well because for decades there has been both a spoken and unspoken understanding among professional journalists as to what kind of guidelines and standards ought to be upheld in the pursuit of the news. That was especially true of cable and network news broadcasters, who wield so much influence in our TV-centric culture.

As former Federal Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt once wrote:

Part of this tradition is that broadcasters do not show propaganda for any candidate, no matter how much a station owner may personally favor one or dislike the other. Broadcasters understand that they have a special and conditional role in public discourse… Virtually all broadcasters understand and honor it.

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If you weren’t already aware, Fox News pretty much did all those things on behalf of Scott Brown.

The FEC made the correct, sensible decision in 2006 when it extended its media exemption to include bloggers, even though many of them broadcast a proud partisan voice online. There’s nothing wrong with a strong editorial voice. What Fox News is doing today, however, goes so far beyond broadcasting an editorial voice, skating so close to GOP campaign management, that it should no longer enjoy the distinction of a media exemption.

Indeed, with its radical transformation into a purely political entity, Fox News has changed the rules governing politics and the press. It’s time for the FEC to recognize that, look at Fox News with a fresh set of eyes, and act accordingly.