Some Perspective On Political Donations

Word History updated very slightly December 20, 2017 

Recently I made note here of donations made to Republicans, namely to the Republican Governors Association, by Rupert Murdoch, owner of many things, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. Within hours of that article, it was announced that MSNBC talk show host, Keith Olbermann, had been suspended without pay by the cable channel's parent company, NBC, for violating company policy about political donations. Olbermann recently made donations to three Democratic candidates. There was great uproar over this suspension, with even some conservative voices siding with Olbermann, and there were the inevitable charges that it was a violation of freedom of speech. For those unaware, Olbermann is politically a liberal/progressive, originally known for covering sports. NBC has since reinstated Olbermann.

The whole incident brought out that MSNBC host of "Morning Joe," Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, previously contributed to a Republican congressional candidate, and that Fox News talk show host, Sean Hannity, has also done so. From what I've read, Fox also has a similar policy to the NBC policy about political donations. Neither of these two has been suspended (at least not as I write this).

First my disclaimer...I'm not a lawyer, so this is purely my opinion based upon what I understand the Constitution to mean about "freedom of speech." The Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech." The situation here did not involve Congress making a law to suspend Olbermann, Murdoch, or any one else. The television networks made their own policies. You may like or dislike those policies, but that's what this issue is about, not freedom of speech. If you own a business, you set the policies for your employees. How those policies are implemented, carried out, or acted upon can certainly come into legal question, however.

Now, whether Murdoch should have made his million dollar contribution to Republicans is not a legal matter, and I never indicated that it was in my comments. He has EVERY RIGHT to contribute to any candidate or cause. Whether this was a smart thing to do, is a matter for discussion, as Fox News has promoted itself to be "fair and balanced." It now seems that it is "fair and balanced" in choosing which Republican causes and candidates to support. Unlike Olbermann or Hannity, Murdoch represents his whole media empire, and it is my understanding that some Fox News "employees" were not thrilled to learn of Murdoch's political contributions. Let's be honest, we all know where Fox News stands, despite their "fair and balanced" protests to the contrary. Murdoch hired former GOP political operative Roger Ailes to head the station. In just this past election campaign, some Republican candidates made remarks about just appearing on Fox News for interviews; the implication being that they get softball questions. Further, one candidate literally said that they permitted her to make appeals for contributions. Murdoch's donation just confirmed the "fair and balanced" slogan as a total joke, something that was already happening anyway.

We also know where Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann stand, Joe Scarborough, while a Republican, is more temperate in most matters, but they do not own their respective outlets. They are all "talk show" hosts, or "commentators, " not really reporters, as such. They are on the air to make comments, even provocative comments, and that they do. From what I've read, and this is always subject to change, up until now, no reporters for any of the networks were found to have made political contributions. The main problem I see with Olbermann's political donations (which were not known to MSNBC at that time, or so I understand) was that he co-anchored the election night results, which does not give an impression of objectivity (to be clear, I did not watch MSNBC's election coverage, so I have no idea of how Olbermann or anyone else came across). It might have been better for all networks to leave "commentators" in that role during election coverage, and not make them anchors or co-anchors. BUT there's no law against them doing otherwise.

WORD HISTORY:
Donation-This noun goes back to the Indo European root "do," with a long "o," which meant, "to give." This produced "dono," which meant  "gift." The Latin offshoot was "donum," which likewise meant " gift." The Latin verb form seems to have been derived from "donum," and was "donare," meaning "to give as a gift." The noun form gradually became "donatus, and then "donation," which passed into Old French as "donacion." English acquired the word via French in the early 1400s, originally spelled "donacioun," before evolving to the modern spelling. "Supposedly" English derived its own verb form, "donate," from the noun in the early 1800s.