Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Former CNBC Reporter: GE CEO Immelt Meddled in Network's Editorial Coverage

 From NewsBusters:

This could confirm what many suspected all along - the corporate heads at General Electric (NYSE:GE) would try to use their media holdings to portray President Barack Obama and his administration in a positive light in order to gain a corporate advantage.

That's how former CNBC reporter and current Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino explains it in his forthcoming book, "Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street."

According to Gasparino, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt had "helped his company feast off of the subsidies of Obamanomics," including the green energy initiatives and health care reform. And although Immelt is a registered Republican, Gasparino detailed how Immelt would walk around his company's headquarters saying "we're all Democrats" now at the prospect of government checks going to GE. But later, Gasparino explained how Immelt would use his authority to manipulate the editorial coverage of on Obama for that reason:

Immelt touted his status as a registered Republican when he stated publicly and infamously among his Republican friends his support of the president, saying, "We are all Democrats now." His friends tell me that the reasons Immelt supported Obama came down to the fact that he liked the president on a personal level and believed he was the moderate that he sold himself as on the campaign trail. At CNBC, where I worked for several years, Immelt called a meeting of top talent to discuss coverage of Obama's economic agenda and whether the heavy criticism by on-air commentators (like me) was fair to the president.

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