On the October 26 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Media Research Center (MRC) director of media analysis Tim Graham vastly understated the amount of funding his organization has received from right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife.

When host Bill O'Reilly asked Graham how much Scaife funding MRC receives, he replied, “Not a lot.” After O'Reilly pressed for an exact figure, Graham stated, “Probably $10,000 in this year or $10,000 in that year.” But according to IRS Form 990, the Sarah Scaife Foundation awarded the MRC a $1.05 million grant in 2003, disbursing $350,000, and over the previous five years disbursed $942,000 to the organization.

(Source: IRS Form 990s, Sarah Scaife Foundation, 1998-2003)

Scaife is the right-wing Pittsburgh financier known as the “Funding Father of the Right.” The charitable organizations he controls, such as the Sarah Scaife Foundation, have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the conservative movement over the past four decades, as a May 2, 1999, Washington Post article reported:

Scaife and his family's charitable entities have given at least $340 million to conservative causes and institutions -- about $620 million in current dollars, adjusted for inflation ... by concentrating his giving on a specific ideological objective for nearly 40 years, and making most of his grants with no strings attached, Scaife's philanthropy has had a disproportionate impact on the rise of the right, perhaps the biggest story in American politics in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Scaife also bankrolled the "Arkansas Project," a 1990s operation aimed at digging up negative information on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

From the October 26 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: Your website is very successful. And we have your 2003 statement. More than $8 million in total revenue. That's much more than Media Matters. Who gives you money?

GRAHAM: Well, we have a lot of people across the country who are --

O'REILLY: You got a sugar daddy like [George] Soros on the right? Somebody kicking in big money?

GRAHAM: Well, we have been funded by Richard Mellon Scaife.

O'REILLY: How much does he kick in to you guys?

GRAHAM: Not a lot. Not a lot.

O'REILLY: Well, give me a figure.

GRAHAM: I'm not the expert on that. Probably $10,000 in this year or $10,000 in that year.

O'REILLY: So he's just giving you a donation out of his foundation? He's not kicking millions of dollars like Soros and the other guy, [Peter] Lewis, is? He's not kicking that kind of money in?

GRAHAM: Not that I know of. But again, you know, if I'm wrong, Media Matters will probably correct me tomorrow.

O'REILLY: But shouldn't you know who's giving you money there, Mr. Graham?

GRAHAM: Well, again, my -- my job is to look at how the news media covers these things.

O'REILLY: You don't want to know who's paying the bills?

GRAHAM: Sure. That's a legitimate thing. But what I'm saying to you is I don't think, really, what matters here -- what matters here is the work. And that is, what was it that the news media did?