There's been plenty of talk about NBC's decision to skip the news about General Electric's ability to make huge profits and pay zero taxes. Now, it's possible that everyone at NBC misplaced their copies of the March 25 New York Times, but the GE story finally made it to the NBC Nightly News yesterday--in a report that was basically a chance for GE boss Jeffrey Immelt, whose company owns nearly half the network,  to try and rebut the story.

Anchor Brian Williams started off by saying this:

The news is still reverberating this week after last week's page-one story in the New York Times....

Now, that is a weird way to describe something you've never told your viewers.

Correspondent Lisa Myers went on to explain that this has created an "uproar," with "liberal groups" up in arms over GE's tax avoidance. She adds:

Well, today Immelt defended GE, saying taxes were unusually low in the last two years because of losses during the financial crisis.

She went on:

Immelt says that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes, including GE, and that the corporate tax code needs to be reformed to make it more competitive and eliminate loopholes. Also, Brian, Immelt says he does not intend to resign from the president's council on jobs.

"More competitive" here means that corporate tax rates should be lower--yes, Immelt is arguing that the fact that GE pays no taxes is a reason to lower its tax rate.

So NBC went from avoiding the news to presenting a one-sided defense of the company, courtesy of the boss. It must be nice to own a TV network.

On Friday it was announced that General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt would be the chair of the White House's Council on Competitiveness and Jobs. Given the fanfare of the announcement (Obama toured a GE plant with Immelt as part of the official rollout), it was considered big news. But let's compare two nightly news broadcasts.

The first program mentioned that between 2007-2009 GE laid off 21,000 U.S. workers and closed 20 factories. The report quoted critic Scott Paul of the business-labor partnership Alliance for American Manufacturing.  And it also mentioned the issue of conflicts of interest: GE has $3 billion in government contracts, including manufacturing engines for a fighter jet Secretary of Defense of Robert Gates has deemed a "wasteful boondoggle."

On another broadcast, the announcement was framed as "part of the White House's shift in focus now that the economy is in recovery." The choice of Immelt was "more evidence the president is trying to mend fences with the business community," with the correspondent adding that "the president said companies like GE are key to his export strategy, which he says will create jobs in the U.S." The only criticism was a passing remark that "some labor leaders were skeptical today, saying that GE has cut jobs and sent them overseas."

The first report was done by ABC's Jake Tapper, and aired on World News.  The latter report aired on NBC Nightly News, owned by General Electric. As anchor Brian Williams put it, the show was "duty bound to remind you GE is the parent company of NBC Universal." That would have been pretty obvious to anyone who watched both broadcasts.

Media Matters research director Jeremy Schulman (8/12/09) writes that "Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs have used their radio and television shows to incite hatred and push wild conspiracy theories, leading several of Beck's advertisers to reportedly pull out of his broadcasts"--one of the hazards inherent in for-profit media.

But "many advertisers have nonetheless sponsored these hosts' hate speech in recent weeks, including major corporations and organizations that, in 2006, reportedly requested that ABC Radio Networks not air their advertisements during any Air America programs":

At the time,

ABC subsequently provided a statement to Media Matters, which read: "It is not uncommon for advertisers and/or agencies to request that their ads run or not run in specific programming environments or dayparts. ABC Radio Networks does not solicit nor encourage these requests from advertisers. If a request is made by an advertiser and /or agency we make our best effort to comply."...

The New York Times reported at the time that "the advertisers' avoidance of Air America's liberal programming seems pointed when contrasted with the commercial success of right-wing talk radio programs like those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity." [New York Times, 11/6/06]

Indeed, Schulman tells us how, "despite their appearance on ABC's Air America 'blackout' list in 2006, a number of those same advertisers have recently run ads during broadcasts of one or more of the following: Limbaugh's radio show, Beck's Fox News show, Beck's radio show, Dobbs' CNN show and Dobbs' radio show." He then provides for your perusal a handy list of said advertisers, including--no surprise--General Electric.

Former TV Newser Brian Stelter's article (New York Times, 8/7/09) about MSNBC and Fox News having "resumed their long-running feud this week after the New York Times reported that their parent companies, General Electric and the News Corporation, had struck a deal to stop each other's televised personal attacks" states that "the deal extends beyond the prime-time hour that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O'Reilly occupy," reporting that "employees of daytime programs on MSNBC were specifically told by executives not to mention Fox hosts in segments critical of conservative media figures, according to two staff members."

While GE's official line is that, "while both companies agreed that the tone should be more civil, no one at GE told anyone at NBC News or MSNBC how to report the news," Stelter quotes unnamed Fox employees who "said they were told in June and July not to flagrantly criticize General Electric." Stelter gives more room to Fox management denials--"We've never suppressed any stories about NBC or GE"--before getting to "some watchdog groups" pointing out how

the months-long cease-fire challenged the claims that the two media companies did not interfere in their on-air content.

The advocacy group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting asked its supporters on Friday to contact GE, urging it to renounce the agreement with Fox.

Jeff Cohen, the founder of the group, said the deal between the two networks’ parent companies was a reason to be wary of corporate-owned TV news.

"It should remind news consumers of who calls the tune and pays the bills--and that TV reporters and even loud-mouthed commentators have corporate bosses whose interests are often not about unbridled journalism," Mr. Cohen said.

Salon editor Joan Walsh weighs in too, about how "it appeared that 'the owners of two large news organizations colluded to make sure their audience got less, not more, information, and to promote their business interests, not the public interest.'"

Read FAIR's new Action Alert: "Did GE Stifle Keith Olbermann?: Fox and MSNBC's Gentlemen's Agreement" (8/7/09).

New York Times editorialist Lawrence Downes (5/4/09) has some good questions about Pete Seeger's big 90th birthday party. The broadcast surely is bound to "be a PBS special made in pledge-week heaven," but Downes has to "wonder, though, how many of the angry moments will survive":

Will we hear the Native American musicians pleading for support in their battle with Peabody Energy? Peabody is a giant strip-mining company that has been at the center of lawsuits by Southwestern tribes over drinking water and income from mineral rights.

Will we hear the praise for the Clean Water Act of 1972, or the acid remark from one of the Indians: "Ever since that man by the name of Hudson went up that river, it's gone to hell."

The evening was, after all, a benefit for Clearwater, the name of an organization and a boat, both built by Mr. Seeger, that have fought for decades to rescue the Hudson River from life as an industrial sewer. The job isn’t done. Remember PCBs? General Electric dumped tons of them in the river. The company is about ready to dredge them out, but for now they are still there, seeping downriver and into fish.

Some insight into the priorities likely to hold sway in PBS's editing process may be gleaned from the "public" network's long-standing close relationship with at least one major sponsor... General Electric.