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FOX 9 ANCHOR CONTRIBUTED TO FRANKEN’S PAC IN 2006
By Michael B. Brodkorb | June 21, 2007
"(D) Fox affiliate in Minneapolis, KMSP, Alix Kendall, morning anchor, $250 in September 2006 to Midwest Values PAC, which gave to Democratic candidates.
Kendall said she opposes the war and thought that her donation was anonymous.
'I also believe that the station doesn't own my political views and values. Did I make the contribution? I did. We all have political opinions in this business. A lot of us want to be politically active. But marching in a war protest isn't an option, being a recognizable person, so we give with our checkbook. I don't think that working for a news organization I give up my rights. I interview plenty of people that I don't agree with, but I also ask questions to get the other side. I think it's actually an advantage — in a news organization we have people of many political views. We have healthy debates. I think it's my civic duty to be involved in what matters to me. I think it's ridiculous that anyone who's sitting in front of a camera doesn't have an opinion — come on, we all do. Did I think about that at the time? No, I didn't. Maybe I should have. But I still feel I have a right to my civic duties.'" Source: MSNBC, June 21, 2007
Click here for the complete story.
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This bombshell story is currently the top feature on the Drudge Report.
UPDATE: I'm interested in that according to the article, Kendall thought her contribution was anonymous.
Topics: Uncategorized | 53 Comments »
June 21st, 2007 at 9:38 am
KMSP Staff has contributed before Kendall
Jeff Passolt gave Quist $300 in ‘94.
Lets ask KMSP to fire all of them.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:40 am
Can you provide a source for that statement?
June 21st, 2007 at 9:47 am
I don’t understand why this is a “bombshell” (or why it was/wasn’t a bombshell when Paul Majors and his wife gave Norm Coleman money). Interesting for contextual purposes yes, but not a “bombshell”.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:51 am
It’s hardly a bombshell. Did you watch her interview ANY of the candidates last year? She was absolutely fawning over Patty Wetterling and I thought she was going to throw herself at Mike Hatch…..
Having said that they love to tell us how “objective” and “apolitcal” they are while trying to hide (”Kendall said she opposes the war and thought that her donation was anonymous.”) their political donations from the world…..
LL
June 21st, 2007 at 9:55 am
My favorite part of the whole story is when that little weasel Gideon Yago from MTV gets pissy with the reporter who called him…
“I tried very hard — our job was not an indoctrination process — I tried to be as professional as possible whenever possible.
“We were a non-traditional news outlet. We were nonpartisan.
“OK, I’ve been rebuked. Thank you for spanking me in public.
“Do you hand in all your rights as a public citizen when you do this?
“I mean — who’s your editor? I’m going to call him right now.”
What a Nancy.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:56 am
Campaign Finance Board, but the contribution was before they went electronic, you will have to go down there and pull the old records.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:03 am
Why is it that even Fox News can’t be conservative in the Twin Cities?
June 21st, 2007 at 10:08 am
I don’t think it’s appropriate, but when both parties receive contributions from reporters it’s a little hard to argue that it’s just Democrats.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:27 am
Alex is a fucking hack in the mornings. She shows her political stripes every day on that show. Gies little grins adds a comment or two here and there she is a total liberal which also then makes her an idiot.
I love how she demands she is not shown to be as short as she really is. I have a friend who is also a part of that program and says Alex is known to be a total bitch and if she does not get her way watch out! Typical liberal media person, huge attitudes! Thinks she is just so much smarter than any of the rest of us ravel.
I once gave her grief for a commercail that she was obvisouly standing on a box or small ladder or something because I know she is just SO much shorter than everyone else. I was just having some fun and thought she would just laugh it off or something but she gave me a look like never mention that again. She is a very insecure person and makes up for it by trying to dominate anyone she thinks does not give her proper respect.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:29 am
Jeuba,
You didn’t read the article. Out of the 144 journalists who made political contributions, 125 gave to Democrats and liberal causes while only 17 gave to Republicans and conservative causes.
Moreover, Guy Raz (who works for both CNN and NPR) gave money to John Kerry’s campaign in 2004 while he was embedded with U.S. troops covering Iraq.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:00 am
The “bombshell” here is not that reporters exercise their 1st Amendment right (regardless of McCain/Feingold) to support candidates of their choice. Its their right.
The ISSUE here is that Big Media is showing their true colors. When 88% of the people in Big Media contribute to liberal/lefty causes and candiates…this is not just a quirk of mathematics. It shows their bias. Just like their voting patterns, which have been well documented.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:02 am
This all just further proof that the news is absolutely and unabashedly biased to the left. Independent studies of news coverage demonstrate the idealogical tilt — usually finding that FoxNews, among other things, actually is “fair and balanced.”
Liberals are interested in idealogical fairness about as much as they are in personal freedom and liberty… which is to say, not at all. They own our news rooms, they’ve intimidated conservatives off our college campuses and work in every arena to harass, threaten and oppress opposing viewpoints.
The constitution is a Post-It Note to Democrats. And they have as much regard for it as they do a piece of toilet paper.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:23 am
Anyone who has ever watched Ms. Kendall “report” on political matters or interview politicians or candidates would know that she is a hard-core liberal Democrat. Her donation to Franken’s PAC simply confirms it.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:27 am
I’m not going to argue that the media has a liberal bias, I dont see the bias really ever but alas, I am a liberal and people tend to be blinded to biases when they are in their favor.
But to immediate go to the media overwhelmingly gives to the left to them being all biased isnt fair to those who arent biased but still do donate.
I also dont think its fair to say we have intimidated conservatives off of college campuses. I HATE when conservatives bitch about being outnumbered on college campuses and the bias towards the left. You know what, if conservatives would just learn to articulate their points more clearly sometimes, then they would gain a lot more respect on college campuses. Most of them are bumbling idiots who have no idea what they are talking about and that is why we gang up on them in class, because they are stupid. I got ganged up in my philosophy class by seminarians and I didnt bitch and moan, I argued my points horribly one day so I sat down and thought my positions out and came up with better positions instead of whined about it.
And the only reason we “own the news rooms” is because liberal people tend to be the questioning, investigative, creative, artsy people in the world. Hollywood is liberal because they are creative, artsy people.
And ha, Republicans disregard the constituion more than Democrats! Wiretaps, taking away habeas corpus, WANTING TO DEFACE WITH BULLSHIT DISCRIMINATION! Come on, you guys shit on the founding fathers everyday.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:29 am
and its ideology, not idealogy
June 21st, 2007 at 11:35 am
Who cares if this woman gave money to the DFL or GOP? Newspeople are individuals, and therefore have the right to contribute to whomever they want. I bet you’d find a lot of GOP contributors among the news organizations too.
What I find distuburing is that TV news has become so pathetically self-promoting and therefore meaningless.
How many times do the anchors refer to something as “breaking news”? How often do they promote their websites? Ever notice that channel 9 cannot go through a newscast without mentioning American Idol?
Stations needed a “team report” to tell us about the recent light rail accident in Minneapolis. If one reporter is too stupid to handle such a simple story, he/she should go to work at Burger King.
“Coming up tonight at ten, we’ll tell you…” No, tell me now, because I am watching now.
Weather people are on the roof and in the back yard. No, no. Just give me the forecast without alerting me to severe weather that might be here three days from now.
They refer to their newscast as a “show”. That’s just plain sad.
TV news is a joke and it’s too bad the people in charge of news at our local stations cannot recognize that.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:57 am
In the fall of 2003 I went down to a Jefferson-Jackson Day event in Iowa, which is sort of a statewide Democratic dinner/fundraiser. It being Iowa and the fall before the caucuses, almost all the Democratic Presidential candidates were there. It was a good chance to meet them face to face and to talk with them and take a good measure. The next morning in the hotel elevator I met and then had breakfast with a producer from CBS. We talked about the candidates, who was good, who each of us liked, etc and then we started talking about the 2000 campaign, which he had also covered. He had covered the Gore campaign and he told me that he and the others noticed that the Gore campaign was robotic and sort of controlled and not very friendly. By contrast, their colleagues covering the Bush campaign were having fun with this former fraternity President, a rambunctious, funny and flirty Governor from Texas. And if you think about it, the image you got from the mainstream press did fit that paradigm: Moribund Vice-Principal vs. Guy I’d Like To Have a Beer With. It’s not like the people covering Bush were voting for him, but personal likeability factors in to this to a great degree in the coverage a candidate gets. I would imagine most of the people covering Pawlenty wouldn’t vote for him, but you cannot say that he gets bad press. There is nothing wrong with a candidate being likeable, I only point it out because I think the rapport a candidate/campaign/politician has with a member of the media is the biggest determination of how good or bad the coverage will be.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Otter
You may be on to something here. However, I find Pawlenty’s spokeman to be a bit grating whenever I see him on the news. I wonder if the reporters feel the same way.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:31 pm
The gov.’s Communications guy (Brian McClung) is a first rate human. He used to work in TV years ago, and he has a fairly decent relationship with the press. Unless there are some press people who are lurking here that want to say otherwise……
June 21st, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Andrew,
I have to take issue with a number of points you make. First of all, I think it’s incredibly ignorant to claim that liberals are more intellectual, open minded and creative than conservatives. Open mindedness, in the current atmosphere of political correctness, is something that left liberals a long time ago.
Second, your claims about Republicans trampling the Constitution are equally absurd. Especially in light of history. Democrats have passed laws limiting freedom of speech in campaign finance laws. (McCain was part of that too to be fair.) They have limited freedom of speech in imposing the so-called “fairness doctrine” and in their current attempt to re-impose the doctrine. Liberals have also limited freedom of speech and thought when passing hate crimes legislation. I’m not saying I disagree with all hate crimes legislation, but there is no doubt that it is a limit on free speech. We don’t have to go back that many years when Bobby Kennedy was wiretapping Martin Luther King, when Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and when they refused to follow desegregation and violated the Fourth Amendment Rights of blacks.
Andrew, you may be a smart, creative, intellectual, erudite fellow, but history is something that isn’t your forte. I would recommend you review the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and their abuses of the Constitution before claiming some false moral high ground on that issue.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Andrew,
Conservatives HATE it when LIBERALS who run campus’ withhold their tenure, but grant it to inferior LIBERAL professors, and intimidate them for their beliefs. Conservative STUDENTS on campus HATE it when LIBERAL professors give them lower grades for expressing their beliefs in class, all the while preaching liberal bullshit all day long.
Liberals are quite possibly the stupidest, most pigheaded assholes on the planet. Your average comment proves my point.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I fully oppose hate crimes legislation. It is never right to punish thought.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:19 pm
FDR also threw thousands of innocent Japanese and Germans in to camps and stole their property during WWII. Don’t give me this shit about Republicans eroding the Constitution.
None of what Andrew cites is even factual. He’s a damn idiot.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Oh I forgot, this is “Threadjacking Thursday”. No wonder we’re not on subject.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
That and no one cares what you have to say Chuck, your a jackass.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Ouch, that hurts, right here in the right aorta, the part of the heart that pumps love…..
June 21st, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Sorry just poking some fun Chuck.
June 21st, 2007 at 2:01 pm
’sal right, I like your stuff Kahuna.
June 21st, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I just feel bad if I do not give someone else grief besides poor Andrew who is often beat like a red headed step child here and then also our furry friend Otter, that poor guy has just drank way too much of the lefties kool aid.
You know the saying: if you are under 20 and not a liberal you have no heart. If you are over 30 and not a conservative you have no brain.
God bless our troops and forgive the democRats.
June 21st, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Gin & Tonic, not Kool-Aid.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:30 pm
What about Stanley Hubbard? He owns how many TV stations? He gives substantial amounts of money on a regular basis to Republicans. He spent a ton of money as part of the “secret” PAC to target Hatch in the last week of the election.
You can’t tell me that didn’t affect his stations. Again, you jokers are hypocrites!
June 21st, 2007 at 3:40 pm
How about a journalistic code of ethics…. Nobody in the media should contribute to anyone. If I was a media type, I sure as hell wouldn’t give money or appear at candidate events in any capacity other than as an impartial observer. No matter what you do, it could impact the veiwers impressions of impartiality. This should cover everyone from the linotype operator at the Shopping News to the CEO of the media conglomerate. You can’t scream “first amendment”, nobody forces you or anyone else to be a media parasite. Judges don’t contribute or appear at candidate stuff (well except for that blowhard (and bad lawyer) Wersal), and we have a fairly clean judiciary.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:43 pm
(D) Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Barbara Haugen, copy editor, $250 to Sen. Amy Klobucher, a Democrat, in October 2006.
Haugen did not return phone calls. The paper’s managing editor, Scott Gillespie, said, “We have a conflict of interest policy. We ask that people who are involved in political coverage — we dissuade them — we actually dissuade the entire staff. We haven’t banned it outright for the entire newsroom. Our policy says that people should avoid doing any partisan politics on their own, avoid any politics. It’s especially emphasized for people who do political coverage.”
Click to return to the list.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Trench, Hubbard isn’t the reporter and isn’t in his newsroom. These communists writing for the Strib and the New York Times are the ones spinning the news.
Hell even Rupert Murdoch owns liberal papers. Wow… what an ideologue.
Who’s that liberal bitch that used to be the “journalist” on NPR… and then went to AirAmerica? Kathryn Lampert or something?
Yeah, she was unbiased too…
June 21st, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Hey Trench
Learn to read. I earlier indicated that there must be some big GOP contributors as well.
Sheesh.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:14 pm
JGMPLS, I didn’t read Stanley Hubbard’s name…
June 21st, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Trench opened mouth and inserted foot.
Can any liberals actually make intelligent arguments or once beaten all turn to names and “well I know I did but what about…”
Gin & Tonic Otter?? That does not sound like your kind of drink.
That would be for adults, does you mother know you are hitting the liquor cabinet? 
I expected something frozen and trendy with some kind of “green” alcohol in it.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Oh, Big Kahuna, it’s a big world out there with people who come in all shapes and sizes…can’t put me in a box. Just as I would imagine that there are Republicans somewhere who don’t enjoy drinking the blood of puppies.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:18 pm
“Kendall thought her contribution was anonymous.” Absolutely unbelievable. Here is someone who reports on politics and current events without a clue to what campaign finance law is about. Probably did stories on the wonderful reform of campaign finance too!
June 21st, 2007 at 7:48 pm
fact is Miss kendall is on a last rate show that starts at 5 am…she has nothing to feel smug about…… Fox news people tend to never leave..(Robyn Robinson)..is there anyone worse than her?…Kendall is moronic….she just lost a portion of her very small audience
June 21st, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Just as I would imagine that there are Republicans somewhere who don’t enjoy drinking the blood of puppies.
No way. They’d have to be a RINO not to enjoy a good cup of puppy blood now and then.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I will say that Alix is a hottie, just don’t let her talk or vote
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:36 pm
In her defense, she IS hot. I’d give her my news any day of the week!
That said, maybe I’m more libertarian on this than most, but you should be able to contribute to whomever you want. Everyone knows the media is full of lefties, so this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Alix is hot. I just thought that. Is it okay to think that? Is it okay to write that? Is it okay to say that. Or does that make me some sort of convenient label to be thrown under the liberazzi’s bus?
I like the way she says “republican”. Makes me crazy.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Media bias would be different if Minnesota was made up of 35% democrats and 65% other. But as it stands 65% of the market is leftist or leftist leaning. And so many conservatives cancelled the Star Tribune so long ago they wouldn’t even consider subscribing again.
Very few consrvatives have time to watch the morning news shows or are home from work in time to watch the news at 6pm, and most are in the wrapper by the time the 10pm hits. They may have watched the 9pm Fox show a few times thinking it was worth it but then with all the redundancy and out-there national novelty coverage they opt to read a book instead.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Oh, Alix you’re SOOOO enlightened.
I was interviewed by her. She was completely unprepared AND because she was personally offended by the subject of the book I wrote(anti-feminist) she conducted the interview like a 6-year-old and the had the nerve to ask me for my copy of the book (free) so she could compare it against her “boyfriend” in Chicago.
She’s one of those poor little low level newscaster liberals who thinks she’s really intelligent and it’s so obvious she’s hanging at an IQ of 90.
Gee, I’ve been waiting to get her back for that crappy interview and now I get my chance right here on MDE.
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:52 pm
A hottie?!? Bah! She’s a talking, empty head who loves some of herself – and herself only.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:00 am
I know some news directors who have worked with her. Suffice to say, “Rhymes with rich.”
She’s like most peple in her business – not terribly bright, but ambitious as hell. A bad combo.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
“Alix is hot”… Really? … she’s o.k., good lookin… but not what I’d call hot… wow.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Not as hot as she once was, but good once as she ever was.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
[...] I wonder if the anchor, Alex Kendall was giddy with glee. Sphere It [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Wow! you knuckleheads really are digging deep now, as usual, name calling, paranoid drivel…90% claiming to be conservative, when really its some single issue that has them voting republican. ie: gun control,abortion,etc…
anyone who believes real conservatives would spend a trillion on a war that is meaningless…is lost in the clouds.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I love how all you neo cons are attacking AMERICAN CITIZENS with the same rights as you.
Typical.
As usual, you turn a blind eye to corporate contributions and dance on the end of your string like the monkey they want you to be.