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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (113079)	1/18/2008 5:11:51 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

MSNBC Driving Visitors to Donate to Clinton Campaign January 14, 2008 updated below: including responses from MSNBC executives) Hillary Clinton's name on MSNBC's Meet the Press homepage (she spoke with Tim Russert yesterday) is currently hyperlinked directly to Clinton's campaign website, where visitors are prominently encouraged to "Drive Hillary's campaign to victory by donating today." There is no contextual reason for this. The link, for example, is not an allusion to an aspect of her campaign's web presence or fundraising strategies. Rather, it's merely her name in the headline (see "Sen. Hillary Clinton" below, the hyperlink in question, under "Sunday, Jan. 13."): Looking back at appearances of other 2008 presidential candidates, I've found no evidence that any of them has received the same treatment from Meet the Press on MSNBC's website, including her two closest rivals for the nomination, Barack Obama and John Edwards. So the question remains: Why is MSNBC driving their visitors to contribute to Hillary Clinton's campaign? Certainly this is a breach of the most basic journalistic ethics or a huge gaffe. Either way, the result is the same. (Stay tuned...) UPDATE: Day two. This link remains intake. Keep in mind that according to MSNBC's About section to Advertisers: "On average, msnbc.com delivers well over a billion page views per month to more than 85 million computers." So how many tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors has MSNBC/Meet the Press already driven to Clinton's site, where they are prominently encouraged to donate and support her campaign? Meanwhile, MSNBC is in the middle of appealing a judge's decision yesterday to allow Congressman Kucinich to attend its debate. How's that for fair and balanced? UPDATE II: I have since been in contact with Randy Stearns, Deputy Editor, News, for msnbc.com and Jim Ray, a concepts producer at msnbc.com, and am in the process of further inquiring about aspects of this matter. On its face, it does appear that Meet the Press on msnbc.com has given similar treatment to prior candidates on its website. But whether it was exactly the same is difficult to confirm because I am told by Stearns and Ray that those original pages no longer exist. As Mr. Ray explained to me, there is a grid used on the MTP msnbc.com page that swaps out information when updated. Yet while Ray was able to locate what he claims is the original grid (though not the original formatting) for John McCain's appearance, showing his name similarly linked to his campaign website, for some reason, this is the only one to which Ray says he has access. Mr. Stearns sent me the archived links of the candidates' MTP appearances (inexplicably buried on msnbc.com - more on that later), which include a link to each candidate's website (here's an example) but not in the prominent and misleading fashion as the current "Sen. Hillary Clinton" headline link, which causes, as some readers have noted, for visitors to click on her name at the top thinking it will take them to the beginning of the MTP interview rather than her campaign website. In other words, as in the examples of archived candidate interviews sent by Stearns, in which the candidates campaign links are clearly labeled "Candidate site," the link in question, the current Clinton link, is handled in a wholly different manner, both prominent and unlabeled. Moreover, questions remain, including those pertaining to the necessity of having access to original information (which led me to report on this in the first place and others to come to the same conclusion, i.e., no evidence available at msnbc.com showed otherwise); having clear access to even altered archived information (it's currently buried); and their defense that they have "no control" over what candidates put on their sites (on the surface that might sound logical; contextually, it's not). I sent Mr. Stearns and Mr. Ray follow-up questions and will report back after I receive their replies. More updates @ mediabloodhound.typepad.com