GREAT MOMENTS IN JOURNALISM – AT 8:44 P.M. ET:  General Electric has sold NBC, which is a good thing, because the conflicts of interest between the parent and NBC News have become flagrant.  NewsBusters reports:

On Sunday, NBC Universal launched its annual "Green Week," as part of the company's "Green is Universal" environmental awareness campaign.

As NBC embarks on yet another week of "environmentally themed programming," it falls to media watchdogs to point out the massive conflict presented by NBC parent company General Electric's significant financial interests in the policies "Green Week" indirectly advances.

GE stands to make millions from Democrats' "clean energy" agenda. The company has invested massive amounts of money in technology that can only be profitable through government intervention or subsidization.

Chief among federal policies from which GE would enormously benefit is cap and trade.

A cap and trade regime would establish a previously-nonexistent market for carbon credits. GE, which was a lead lobbying force for cap and trade and is a member of the pro-C&T "Climate Action Partnership," established what it called "Greenhouse Gas Services," a venture that invested in carbon credits. Those credits are completely useless unless the government, through a cap and trade scheme, establishes a market for them by requiring that all carbon-emitting businesses buy those credits to be allowed to pollute.

In other words, GE spent millions of dollars on a venture whose profitability depends on policies that its media arm, NBC Universal, shills for under the guise of "environmental awareness."

COMMENT:  NewsBusters nails it, as it usually does.  You'd think there'd be greater outrage over this clear-cut conflict, but ethical standards in mainstream media aren't exactly rigid.  (You may have noticed.)  Also, most people in media think of environmentalism as a religion, not a business, and therefore entitled to a special place.  Other religions, like Christianity or Judaism, don't rank quite so high.

Well, NBC will soon be operating under the Comcast label, so the particular conflict noted above may not apply.  There is, of course, the matter of collusion with liberal Democrats, and being in the tank for Obama, and being a decidedly left-wing outfit.  You may be sure those things are not on NBC's "to take care of" list.

November 16, 2010