According to a blockbuster story that appeared yesterday in The New American, Bain Capital, the venture equity firm that Presidential candidate Mitt Romney founded, owns Clear Channel Communications Inc. Clear Channel essentially owns the conservative talk radio industry. According to Alex Newman who wrote the New American piece:
Activists are expressing serious concerns that Mitt Romney’s private equity firm Bain Capital owns one of America’s largest media conglomerates, Clear Channel Communications, Inc., which broadcasts numerous popular talk-show hosts with incalculable influence in the 2012 GOP primary. Among the radio personalities syndicated by Clear Channel or aired on hundreds of stations it owns nationwide are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and many others.
Because of the San Antonio-based media giant’s enormous influence — it is the largest owner of radio stations in the United States, and experts point out that it essentially owns what has come to be known as the conservative talk-radio industry.
Given the enormous influence Conservative Establishment talk radio has on public opinion, regular Americans have a right to know who is paying the salaries of its most influential talkers. If conservative media is beholden to a company that is benefitting a Presidential candidate (who is currently leading in most polls and being all but anointed as the Republican winner), the public has a right to know. Governor Romney should be required to delineate his fiduciary relationship with conservative media and release all relevant financial statements (including his tax returns) immediately.
Newman points out that Governor Romney no longer owns Bain Capital, but Romney reveals in his financial statement that he continues to own a large stake in the company and profits heavily from it. That is an important fact.
It should also be pointed out that many of the talk radio heads have not been overtly on the Mitt Romney bandwagon. That is not the issue. The salient issue is whether it would be prudent for the United States to elect a President who has such strong connections with a firm that has controlling influence over the hugely influential popular media.
Rush Limbaugh signed an eight year deal for 400 million dollars with Clear Channel Communications in 2008. Limbaugh describes himself as an entertainer. That does not pass the smell test with most Americans. His listeners know him as a forceful and serious political commentator who also uses irony and irreverence to make his show entertaining. But Limbaugh is a political figure, perhaps one of the five most influential political persons in the United States. Thus, since Limbaugh has so much influence, people have a right to know who is paying him. In this case, the answer is indirectly, a firm that benefits Mitt Romney handsomely.
Limbaugh and other conservative talkers are often vocal defenders of conservative populism. They speak out rhetorically for the little guy. But when push comes to shove they seem to be incapable of challenging big banking and other big money interests that have benefitted from a rigged system that has allowed those interests to flourish at the expense of middle income people for the past several decades. When their big money assumptions are challenged, they usually trot out the increasingly tired and linear class envy defense instead of looking deeper into the structural conditions that favor big money interests over middle income people and small businesses. Given that most of these talkers are millionaires, is it any wonder that they would be reluctant to speak out against a system that has helped them get rich? Is it any wonder that these radio and television personalities are attacking anyone that threatens their hegemony?
The media as an institution must be an independent watchdog if the United States is to remain a Constitutional Republic with Democratic principles. If media personalities are compromised because their salaries are paid by individuals and institutions they are supposed to be holding accountable, the American community is at risk. Citizens need information upon which to make informed decisions. Media personalities have a right to be biased in any direction they want but the public ought to have a right to full disclosure. The responsibility in this case lies with the public figure who seeks the public trust, to make his business entanglements known to prospective voters.
In a related story that appeared in Salon.com last week, Edward Mason revealed that thirty-five of Mitt Romney's endorsers received contributions from his campaign prior to their endorsements. In effect Romney bought their endorsements. Shouldn't that information be disclosed to the voting public by the endorsers? According to the story, Romney has been busy paying off federal, state, and local political officials since 2010 in order to garner their support.
We also know from information that appeared on Open Secrets, that Mitt Romney's biggest campaign contributors are some of the largest financial interests in the world. Big investment banks (aka federal bailout partners) are apparently enamored with the prospects of Mitt Romney becoming President of the United States.
As we learn more about Mitt Romney's web of financial connections, questions emerge about how well-served regular Americans would be if a man of such financial largess were elected as President of the United States.
Regular Americans, who aren't already jaded to the point that they will accept any form of corruption as business as usual, might be asking themselves, Is there anything that Mitt Romney does not already own that he wouldn't buy if he could? He apparently owns much of the media and many politicians already. Why stop there?
Kevin Kervick is a social entrepreneur and freelance writer. He is the author of Discovering Possibility: A Common Sense Conservative Manifesto (For Classical Liberals Too).
If you would like to receive an update when Kevin Kervick releases another article, click on the subscribe link above.
Comments