Even liberal Media Matters pays Fox News ($35k) to reach its prized audience

Why is Bill O'Reilly smiling?

In case you were one of the three people taking turns watching Keith Olbermann this week, that allegedly anti-News Corp. ad by Media Matters for America finally aired on the genuine Fox News Channel the other night.

The result: the liberal outfit is out $35G's, lunch money under today's Washington regime. (To see how much money that really is, scroll to the illustration below).

But Fox News, of course, is still Fox News. And someone over at MM should be taking lessons from CNN's Paul Begala on composing alleged attack ads. The 30-second spot spends more time reciting a pride-laden News Corp. quote about supporting free enterprise in a difficult economic time than it does explaining any alleged wrongdoing.

Hundreds of millions of Americans don't follow MM's template-cranked whining about....

...any perceived criticism of you-know-who in the you-know-what-color-house. The easily-offended group is a self-proclaimed guardian of the country against some in the media. MM has even been offended by bad reviews of the Real Good Talker's news conferences by one-time political operatives (No, not Chris Matthews, David Gergen or George Stephanopoulos).

Recently, the outfit claimed to be offended that the Fox parent company, which is in the business of making money, donated $1 million of that money to the Republican Governors Assn., which is in the business of electing GOP governors who support businesses growing and hiring workers to make money.

Apparently, this tipped off the fringe org that News Corp. was interested in making even more money during business-friendly political climates in as many of candidate Obama's 57 states as possible.

Since taking complete control of Washington's political institutions 20 months ago, Democrats have spent upwards of $787 billion in public funds in those same states to stimulate job growth and stimulated the unemployment rate instead.

According to numerous polls, a tsunami-sized wave of voters is looking to make some changes among officeholders in midterm elections come Nov. 2. That widespread desire for change-to-believe-in 2.0 was confirmed by News Corp.'s substantial donation to the other political party.

The MM complaint was obviously a ploy designed to create, in this case, anti-Fox publicity at no cost, as all political campaigns do when, for instance, announcing new TV ads that get more play in news stories than in actual purchased air-time. However, the highly-rated Fox News called their bluff, agreeing to cable-cast the ad and the group had to pony up some of its own donated dough.

After negotiations over script accuracy, which obviously didn't work to MM's advantage, the tepid ad appeared during "The O'Reilly Factor" Tuesday. It begins: "And now a special message about a story that has not yet been covered by Fox News primetime." Mystery. Intrigue.

The handsome Paul Rittenberg, who is Fox News' executive vice president for advertising, told Mediaiite: "We are glad Media Matters has recognized the value of the upscale Fox News audience and is willing to pay rate-card to reach it."

The alleged attack ad ends by saying News Corp. has given $1 million "to oppose Democratic candidates for office this November."

Which prompted the handful of disgruntled voters not using the bathroom at that moment to say, "So, what's the problem?"

-- Andrew Malcolm

Speaking of $1 million, you don't need $1 to join the 52,700-plus global readers following The Ticket with Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available here on Kindle now. 

Here's an illustration of how much money Media Matters paid to Fox News Channel for 30 seconds with its large evening audience:

THIS MUCH MONEY

PLUS THIS MUCH MONEY

PLUS THIS MUCH MONEY

PLUS THIS MUCH MORE MONEY

WOW, THAT'S A LIBERAL AMOUNT OF MONEY!

Comments

[Reno_Dave]

Saw the ad when it ran. I had heard the that MM was had a bug up it's b*tt about this.

My first reaction to the ad?

"MM is wasting their money. Cool."

[BJ]

Who put the Goatse behind Bill O??!! That's some slick chyroning!

[Curious]

Doesn't that require a permission slip from the W.H. to do that?

[e4bannan]

I almost feel sad for the left. They're having to resort to extending the Bush tax cuts. Their bombshell “major announcement” that was guaranteed to “excite Democrats across the country" turned out to be a lame website and logo. They face a crushing tsunami this November. Now they have to come to Fox News with hat in hand and pay the enemy so somebody, ANYBODY, will see their little ad.

[akw]

ROTFLMBO! Bravo, Andrew.

[BOB HADDAD]

Since the election almost every news media and commentatr has ask, " What specific idea do you have to balance the budget or start the process? " Not one has answered and the news media just stop and don't suggest anything new themselves. Mat i suggest that Congress start a home bu thier salaries, expense accounts, thier retirement pay for life, thier medical plan, and on and on. Transparance in all this msut be aqddressed. If they can not start at home , how can they ask all Americans to start to give up there status. The nation is all for review of this expense and the lawmakers no living under the same rules thay place on the everyday Citizen.

Let see the media bring this up and see the immediate support of most Americans from all sides. Try it and you might start a wave that canget things going. Any family in economcal difficulty has to start a home. Why not congress.