Sharron Angle brags about her fundraising from "friendly" outlets like Fox News
September 22, 2010 11:28 am ET by Eric Hananoki
As journalist Jon Ralston noted, Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle bragged to supporters that her appearances on a "friendly press outlet" like Fox News are profitable. As an example, Angle said that when she made an appeal on "Sean Hannity's television show we made $40,000 before we even got out of the studio in New York."
From a transcript of Angle posted on Ralston's blog (audio here):
Guest: Sharron, how are you doing as far as the fundraising?
Sharron Angle: It's going really well. If you're interested in just the Internet part of that -- and of course I've been criticized for saying that I like to be friends with the [press] -- but here's the deal: when I get a friendly press outlet -- not so much the guy that's interviewing me -- it's their audience that I'm trying to reach. So, if I can get on Rush Limbaugh, and I can say, "Harry Reid needs $25 million. I need a million people to send twenty five dollars to SharronAngle.com." The day I was able to say that [even], he made $236,000 dollars. That's why it's so important. Somebody...I'm going on Bill O'Reilly the 16th. They say, "Bill O'Reilly, you better watch out for that guy, he's not necessarily a friendly"...Doesn't matter, his audience is friendly, and if I can get an opportunity to say that at least once on his show -- when I said it on Sean Hannity's television show we made $40,000 before we even got out of the studio in New York. It was just [great]. So that's what I'm really reaching out to is that audience that's had it with Harry, and you can watch that happen when I go on those shows. Go on my website, it starts coming in. We have an automatic...when you put your name in there and it doesn't tell how much you gave, but it tells your name and where you're from. And so you can just watch it; it just rolls like this. In fact, with Rush Limbaugh we put it all down. We couldn't take the ticker going fast enough. And we've pulled in over [3,000,000] dollars just from that kind of a message going out.
Angle has been fairly consistent in touting Fox News as part of her national fundraising push. On September 10, Angle wrote that she would appear on Fox News' Hannity as "part of our push" to raise $1 million online; she previously told Fox News reporter Carl Cameron that she needed the press to be her "friend" and allow her to give out the address of her website; and in July, Angle suggested that she frequently appeared on Fox News -- the home of softball Angle interviews -- because they allow her to make fundraising appeals to viewers.
The Fairness Doctrine went away under Reagan, so it no longer applies. However, there are rules and regulations as to how much an individual or corporation can contribute to a specific political campaign. And all the free advertising Faux News is providing to GOP politicians like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell represents a defacto campaign contribution.
This needs to be investigated.
No, wait, that's Beck.