Saturday, June 23, 2007

NDTV supports Hillary Clinton? Financially?

MSNBC, a US news website for those of you who didn't know, did a story which exposed the political contributions made by journalists to various journalists or news organisations to politicians. While, news organisations rarely donate directly, the contributions made by their reporters/editors/managers often indicate the organisation's political bent.
So, this following line is particularly interesting.

(D) New Delhi Television, Stephen Marks, reporter, Bethesda, Md., $2,300 to Hillary Clinton in March 2007.


Hmm, this is particularly interesting! I'm sure this will be defended as a 'Presonal Contribution' but $2300 isn't a small sum of money. Even though it must be admitted that almost every foreign news organisation that has contributed has done so for Mrs Clinton, which kind of indicates whom everybody thinks will win the Novmber 2008 election. What is the betting that NDTV will be the first Indian TV Channel to get an exclusive? It has to be noted that the pakistan TV correspondent in California donated $4000 for Hillary's campaign. Will Rajdeep/Raghav make a contribution as well?
I wonder if this will lead to a rush of donations from Indian news organisations to Hillary's campaign, after all following his Clinton D (Punjab) statement, Obama won't be getting much support from the desi community. Anyway, at least no matter how much Americans complain about their political system being awash in money, at least they keep proper records. Not like the way that the pharmaceutical industry is funding a small two-bit party in India.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yup, NDTV right up there with the best, but they must be in their cups by now . . . it puts them in the category of ""Non-English-language news organizations:-
(MSNBC.com was not able to reach any of these.)""

Now what do you think happens when you research the link between NDTV and MSNBC?

Some of the apple wine is getting ready, got to hit Lonavala later today, but it is wetwetwet and slippery up that back road.

Anonymous said...

K, what about India? Do journalists in India donate to political parties? Or are their contributions made in other ways?

Saurabh

Anonymous said...

just wanted to check. Does ndtv really have a reporter called stephen marks on their roll in states. Atleast, I have never seen him on tv.

Anonymous said...
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thalassa_mikra said...

I don't know how you are assessing the $2300, but I've seen upper middle class Americans donate that kind of money to state senator campaigns. For presidential campaigns, the personal donations are even higher.

I'm baffled by the confidence in Hilary though - which just proves how New York and DC-centric much of the national and international news media is. Hilary is a deeply divisive figure. It's not just that she's a woman, after all Ann Richards was governor of Texas and she was a woman, but Hilary rubs a lot of folks the wrong way.

A Democratic ticket for Hilary will be a disaster for the party. Be prepared to see Giuliani swearing in.

Anonymous said...
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K said...

Whoever said this blog was democratic, I don't like your comment I delete. fair enough, you were not abusive, but you were still being a prick.