The Media Research Center (MRC) has filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against Bloomberg LP, the owner of Bloomberg News, Michael Bloomberg and Mike Bloomberg 2020, Inc.
The media watchdog maintains that by stopping journalists at his news outlet from investigating Bloomberg himself, or other Democrat presidential candidates, but continuing to investigate President Donald Trump, they are potentially providing an improper contribution to the Bloomberg campaign.
“According to FEC law, the ‘media exemption’ that would normally exempt media organizations from federal campaign finance disclosure laws does not apply if ‘the facility is owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate’ should the organization fail to ‘give reasonably equal coverage to all opposing candidates,'” MRC’s website Newsbusters reports.
“Bloomberg News is making a mockery of legitimate journalism. They have consciously chosen to abandon their journalistic responsibilities in favor of what is politically convenient,” MRC President Brent Bozell said in a statement.
The complaint says that on or about November 23, the Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News stated in a memorandum that they will “continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic Primary … [but we] will continue to investigate the Trump administration.”
The complaint adds that this may be a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and should be investigated. It notes that to avoid conflict the candidate may have to register the news organization as a political committee, which it has not done.
“This is a public declaration that Bloomberg’s newsroom is adopting media bias as an official policy,” Bozell added.“This is not only categorically unethical, but potentially illegal, which is why we are calling for an investigation.”
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