Plan B Forum

Recently, we were told on this board that "MSNBC ... operates basically as the broadcast arm of the DNC." I watch a fair bit of MSNBC, so I did some looking.

It turns out that FOX has been presenting as "analysts" and "contributors" people who are actually Romney campaign operatives, advisors, and surrogates. And FOX has not seen fit to disclose those relationships except when FOX has been caught concealing them.

Waled Phares is part of the Romney campaign's Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team., He is also Co-chair of the Romney campaign's Middle East & North Africa working group. And he is also a FOX "analyst," whose "ties to the Romney campaign have repeatedly not been disclosed" by FOX.

John Bolton is a Romney campaign advisor and surrogate. He is also a FOX "contributor," and his "ties to the Romney campaign regularly go undisclosed" by FOX.

Elaine Chao -- husband of the foulest creature in American politics, Mitch McConnell -- is national chair of Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders for Romney. She is also a FOX "contributor". And she is a nominee for FOX's board of directors. "Fox Business has hosted Chao to analyze the Obama administration without disclosing her Romney campaign affiliation".

(FOX now claims that Chao is not a FOX contributor, but "Fox identified Chao as a Fox News contributor as recently as September 6 during an appearance on Fox Business." When FOX gets caught presenting Romney operatives as "contributors" -- presto! -- they are suddenly not "contributors".)

And "Jay Sekulow frequently appears on Fox News to discuss legal issues and attack the Obama administration without being identified as a Romney legal adviser."

Of course, FOX also has as a "contributor" the living embodiment of sleaze in political campaigning, Karl Rove.

Who is whoring for whom?

This just in. Fire is Hot.

Despite all of this, I have no intentions of signing up for Fox...

Edited to add; actually, that's not too bad...

All three cable news networks use analysts that are attached as consultants to the campaigns or other Super Pac groups...

I'm not sure what the big deal is about it....

FOX certainly has a couple of hosted opinion programs that are in the tank for Romney, (like Hannity's) but FOX at least has some actual news programming during the day...

MSNBC only has one or two shows that aren't in the tank for Obama; Morning Joe (which I really think has become by far the best policy issue discussion show on TV) and maybe Chuck Todd's program which follows, which usually does politics pretty straight with people form both sides, but other than that it has basically no news programming whatsoever; every day now is a marathon multi-hour infomercial for the Obama campaign....

They have a perfect right to do this if they want to of course, and they certainly aren't being subtle or in any way attempting to conceal it....

MSNBC made a programming decision several years ago to go with an all-lefty-yacking-all-the-time format, and they've gotten better numbers than they used to get, (apparently there's a niche market out there for mindless parroting of liberal Beatitudes and Demo spin...)

... they [the people at MSNBC] certainly aren't being subtle or in any way attempting to conceal it....

Exactly.

Does MSNBC present any Obama campaign operatives/advisors/consultants as MSNBC analysts/contributors without disclosing those people's affiliations with the Obama campaign? That, after all, is the issue. The difference, from what I can see, is that MSNBC discloses the campaign relationships of its analysts/contributors/etc., whereas FOX does not.