Fox News Gives Karl Rove’s Crossroads Groups Millions In Free Airtime

By Josh Israel/Think Progress

Though Karl Rove receives a salary from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for his work as a Fox News Channel “political contributor,” his compensation doesn’t end there. The network frequently airs ads by his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPSpolitical committees, as “news,” free of charge.

A ThinkProgress review of Fox News Channel broadcasts over the past twelve months revealed that Fox News programs ran all or a significant part of Crossroads ads at least 34 times — an estimated value of more than $3.6 million in free air time. Frequently, the network’s hosts run the ads during Rove’s segments and then allow him to explain and repeat their charges.

On Monday, for example, Fox News aired a significant chunk of a new American Crossroads ad attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her handling of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Noting criticism the ad received from conservative columnist William Kristol, host Martha MacCullum asked Rove: “What say you?”

Watch the video:

According to TVEyes Media Monitoring Suite, a subscription-only search engine for TV broadcasts, a 30-second slot on America’s Newsroom program has a “national publicity value” of $79,445.92. But because the ad was shown during the programming, Rove and American Crossroads got 20-something seconds of the ad for free, rather than having to pay Fox News Channel or local cable companies for the air time. What’s more, he was then paid to promote his own advertisement.

ThinkProgress found eight other recent Fox News broadcasts featuring Crossroads commercials in TVEyes, with an estimated value of about $580,000 combined. A Nexis search of other Fox News transcripts found at least 25 other times when hosts showed significant clips of ads. Estimating the value of these slots based on an average of recent “national publicity values” for each suggests they were worth more than $3 mllion. It is worth noting that ratings for Fox News (and all news networks) have been lower in 2013 than in the 2012 election year, so the value of the pre-election ad plays would likely have been even higher.

The spots included:

Date	Program	Ad
5/16/2012	Special Report with Brett Baier	“Obama’s Promise” (Crossroads GPS)
5/16/2012	Hannity	“Obama’s Promise” (Crossroads GPS)
5/22/2012	Hannity	“Basketball” (Crossroads GPS)
5/26/2012	Journal Editorial Report	“Basketball” (Crossroads GPS)
7/11/2012	Hannity	“Obama’s War On Women” (American Crossroads)
7/13/2012	Hannity	“Obama’s War On Women” (American Crossroads)
7/13/2012	The O’Reilly Factor	“Obama’s War On Women” (American Crossroads)
7/25/2012	The O’Reilly Factor	“Replay” (American Crossroads)
7/25/2012	Hannity	“Replay” (American Crossroads)
7/31/2012	Hannity	“News” (Crossroads GPS)
8/17/2012	The Five	“Run, Joe. Run” (American Crossroads)
9/14/2012	Special Report with Brett Baier	“Skips” (American Crossroads)
10/1/2012	The Five	“World” (American Crossroads)
10/1/2012	On the Record with Greta van Susteren	“World” (American Crossroads)
10/1/2012	Hannity	“World” (American Crossroads)
10/18/2012	The Five	“Act of Terror” (American Crossroads)
10/18/2012	Hannity	“Act of Terror“
10/24/2012	The O’Reilly Factor	“At Stake” (American Crossroads)
10/24/2012	The Five	“At Stake” (American Crossroads)
10/24/2012	Hannity	“At Stake” (American Crossroads)
10/24/2012	On the Record with Greta van Susteren	“At Stake” (American Crossroads)
11/1/2012	Hannity	“At Stake” (American Crossroads)
2/7/2013	The O’Reilly Factor	“Ashley’s Story” (American Crossroads)
2/7/2013	The O’Reilly Factor (replay)	“Ashley’s Story” (American Crossroads)
2/22/2013	On the Record with Greta van Susteren	“Obama’s Mess” (Crossroads GPS)
2/22/2013	Special Report with Brett Baier	“Obama’s Mess” (Crossroads GPS)
3/13/2013	Hannity	“Appropriate” (American Crossroads)
3/13/2013	Happening Now	“Appropriate” (American Crossroads)
3/14/2013	Hannity (replay)	“Appropriate” (American Crossroads)
5/10/2013	Hannity	“Benghazi” (American Crossroads)
5/11/2013	Hannity (replay)	“Benghazi” (American Crossroads)
5/13/2013	The O’Reilly Factor (replay)	“Benghazi” (American Crossroads)
5/13/2013	America’s Newsroom	“Benghazi” (American Crossroads)
5/13/2013	The O’Reilly Factor	“Benghazi” (American Crossroads)

Karl Rove signed a contract extention in January, keeping him on the network through 2016.

Karl Rove's PAC tweet attacks after Commerce Secretary's accidents

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Crossroads GPS’ One-Size-Fits-All Ad Falsely Claims North Dakota’s Booming Economy Is ‘Reeling’

By Tanya Somanader

With veteran GOP operative Karl Rove at its back, and a little help from the Citizens United decision, the conservative PAC American Crossroads and its 501(c)(4) counterpart Crossroads GPS bombarded the airwaves with over $16 million in attack ads this campaign season. With 5 days to go until the election, American Crossroads announced $6 million worth of ad buys yesterday in its final blitz to defeat Democrats. But, while a GOP victory might be the Crossroads groups’ top priority, one ad proves that accuracy is certainly not.

This season, Crossroads created a one-size-fits-all ad slamming targeted Democrats for supporting the Recovery Act. Running in different races across the country, the ad claims that while whichever state’s “economy is reeling,” whoever the Democrat happens to be is “making [the economy] worse” by supporting the “stimulus boondoggle.” Confident that this “fill-in-the-blank” issue ad fits every state, Crossroads ran the ad against Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D) in North Dakota. “North Dakota’s economy is reeling and Congressman Earl Pomeroy is making it worse,” the ad warns.

Watch it:

The ominous ad, however, fails to mention one important detail: North Dakota’s economy is not reeling. In fact, it’s booming. This summer, North Dakota saw employment rise from 362,100 in December 2007 to 371,300 last month — a record in job creation for the state. Indeed, along with Alaska, North Dakota is the only state “to have created jobs since the onslaught of the Great Recession.” And with the highest rate of personal income growth and the nation’s lowest unemployment rate of 3.7 percent — well below the 9.6 percent national average — this state’s economy “sticks out like a diamond in a bowl of cherry pits.”

But truth in advertising isn’t exactly Crossroads’ modus operandi. According to Factcheck.org research, American Crossroads regularly makes “false and misleading claims” in their “blizzard” of attack ads in states like Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Nevada, Missouri, and New Hampshire. And while American Crossroads must disclose its donors, Crossroads GPS is a 501(c)(4) organization and therefore does not have to. Thus, like its “kissing cousin” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Crossroads GPS can take advantage of legal loopholes to inject massive funds into this year’s election without ever having to disclose its funders.

Pomeroy’s campaign ripped into Crossroads today for the “phony,” “cookie-cutter” ad. “Next time Karl Rove wants to funnel secret money to North Dakota to influence our elections, he ought to visit our state first or at least pick up one of our newspapers,” said Pomeroy’s spokesman Brenden Timpe. “If he did, he would know that North Dakota’s economy is doing quite well thank you very much, and Earl has been a strong partner in that progress.”