President Donald Trump’s razing of the White House’s East Wing to build a ballroom has put some news organizations following the story in an awkward position, with corporate owners among the contributors to the project — and their reporters covering it vigorously.
Comcast, which owns NBC News and MSNBC, has faced on-air criticism from some of the liberal cable channel’s personalities for its donation. Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, is another donor. The newspaper editorialized in favor of Trump’s project, pointing out the Bezos connection a day later after critics noted its omission.
Comcast, which owns NBC News and MSNBC, has faced on-air criticism from some of the liberal cable channel’s personalities for its donation. Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, is another donor. The newspaper editorialized in favor of Trump’s project, pointing out the Bezos connection a day later after critics noted its omission.
It’s not the first time since Trump regained the presidency that interests of journalists at outlets that are a small part of a corporate titan’s portfolio have clashed with owners. Both the Walt Disney Co. and Paramount have settled lawsuits with Trump rather than defend ABC News and CBS News in court.
“This is Trump’s Washington,” said Chuck Todd, former NBC “Meet the Press” host. “None of this helps the reputations of the news organizations that these companies own, because it compromises everybody.”
Companies haven’t said how much they donated, or why
None of the individuals and corporations identified by the White House as donors has publicly said how much was given, although a $22 million Google donation was revealed in a court filing.
Comcast would not say Friday why it gave, although some MSNBC commentators have sought to fill in the blanks.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle said the donations should be a concern to Americans, “because there ain’t no company out there writing a check just for good will.”
“Those public-facing companies should know that there’s a cost in terms of their reputations with the American people,” Rachel Maddow said on her show this week, specifically citing Comcast.
“There may be a cost to their bottom line when they do things against American values, against the public interest because they want to please Trump or buy him off or profit somehow from his authoritarian overthrow of our democracy.”
NBC’s “Nightly News” led its Oct. 22 broadcast with a story on the East Wing demolition, which reporter Gabe Gutierrez said was paid for by private donors, “among them Comcast, NBC’s parent company.”
