Do paid ads on a channel chill free speech?
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Did Rachel Maddow just open a new door in her reporting? This past Wednesday, a Rachel Maddow segment exposed the campaign against GMO food labeling in Washington state's referendum, an effort that narrowly won despite what was earlier measured at two-to-one support in favor of labeling genetically modified food.

Monsanto, Coke, Pepsi, Kraft, DuPont and various retail associations poured $22 million - all from out-of-state coffers - into the campaign against Referendum 522, dwarfing the $6 million raised by food labeling advocates. This is a repeat of the same cash avalanche that killed GMO transparency in California last year. But close watchers of Maddow might notice she has rarely weighed in on the GMO foods debate before this.

We may never know why Maddow doesn't report more often on Monsanto's dark manipulations, but one guess is because MSNBC's food industry sponsors have a vested interest in keeping Maddow focused on other subjects. The story-behind-the-story can never be divulged, thanks to standard industry practices like non-disclosure agreements, but in media, sometimes non-reporting on a subject gives us insight too. 

MSNBC's Tug-Of-War

Maddow paints some of her own advertisers in a bad light, and in turn, their advertising on her show contradicts her. For example, Maddow was way in front of the rest of the media during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe, showing how BP misled us on the extent of the spill, and used toxic chemical dispersants to make the gigantic oil plumes less visible. But today, we can see BP ads air on her show, promising that the clean up is going awesome and that BP is committed to the people and environment, (even as they doggedly resist paying reparations in court).

Another everyday advertiser in Maddow's breaks are spots placed by the American Petroleum Institute that portray hydraulic fracturing as safe, secure and under close 24-hour monitoring. But MSNBC's steady diet of industry cash collides awkwardly with Maddow's coverage of hydrofracking. She has aired multiple segments exposing the dangers and manipulations of the industry. 

Modified Broadcasts: Can Commercial TV Objectively Report on the National Food Fight?

Even more absent on Maddow's TV show is reporting on the great GMO food debate. I perked up Wednesday as she approached it sideways, in a report more focused on massive corporations outspending the grassroots in Washington state. Seems the $16 million disparity in yet another GMO labeling referendum trumped whatever has kept Rachel so off the topic to date, although too late to affect the outcome.

Perhaps the issue is gaining importance? Several states remain poised to introduce similar bills, spotlighting Obama's broken campaign promise to label GMO foods, and his appointment of Monsanto executives to top posts in the FDA and agricultural trade office. 

Of late a different Rachel, Rachel Parent, a fourteen year old anti-GMO activist has been gaining attention for going toe-to-toe with a wealthy industry supporter on TV. She handed the guy his shill-happy spleen in a now-viral video. Because it's less corrupt Canadian television, the public was able to benefit from such a discourse. 

Back home, it seems the "sales" division at MSNBC has never offered any of their many food industry clients a chance to debate labeling with Maddow during her program. Here MSNBC's weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry took on GMOs, but was told by a panelist that the science on the matter is settled, despite a significant network of European scientists disagreeing. Monsanto would be proud.

The Rachel Maddow Difference 

I would argue Rachel Maddow is the most well-researched nightly anchor on cable, bravely exposing astroturfers and their powerful dark money sugar daddies. She is a without doubt a liberal/progressive partisan, but is also a paragon of how to make an argument following strict journalistic standards. Her storytelling is accented with humor and history, providing background (her famous "set ups") that offer sorely needed education for viewers.

In her delivery, she has taken cues from right wing counterparts like Sean Hannity, who uses repetition to hammer points home, ofttimes rephrasing one statement five times in different ways to make sure the audience absorbs it. But unlike Hannity, Rush Limbaugh or Fox, who disdain fact checking in a constant stream of provable deceit, Ms. Maddow is quick to offer retractions in any instance she gets something wrong. Her "Department of Corrections" feature often adds fascinating follow-ups to her reports.

Maddow's targets are chiefly Republican, but she has also skewered Democrats like Obama on a host of issues. Maddow questioned the President's Afghanistan policy when few TV shows were. The President even summoned Maddow for an off-the-record lunch the day after she derided our debt-fueled quagmire in the "graveyard of empires". That next evening, Maddow lambasted the war policy unabated, pointing out that Afghanistan would never be fixable without a functional judiciary or credible local authorities. 

Maddow has grilled Obama administration officials like Richard Holbrooke, Susan Rice, Jeh Johnson, Lisa Jackson and any other "get" she could hit with tough questions. Alas, her invitations to Republican figures go ever unanswered, following the epic fail by Rand Paul. Yet Maddow still notes how she always contacts them for interviews, sometimes pleading over the air.

Drilling Deep into MSNBC's Hydrofracking Ad Revenue

Praise aside, I've held a long running theory that Maddow's bosses at MSNBC limit her. If MSNBC takes money from the natural gas industry, airing pro-fracking commercials during Maddow's own show, every single night for years, it begs the question whether the reporting on hydrofracking is being neutralized. It surely is stunted or absent on most other networks.

An awkward moment occurred on The Bill Maher show in June 2012 as "The Hulk" star Mark Ruffalo noted that the American Gas Association's current propaganda is authored by Hill & Knowlton, the very same PR firm that persuaded Americans to smoke cigarettes long after scientific studies described the health dangers. 

That same panel marks the only mention I could find of Rachel Maddow questioning genetically modified foods on TV - prior to last week (on HBO as opposed to MSNBC). 

The High Cost of Raking in Walmart Money

Another super-nefarious advertiser on Maddow's show is Walmart, America's largest "welfare queen". Last year whistleblower accounts alleged Walmart's current and former CEOs covered up bribes made to fast-track growth in Mexico. Despite compelling evidence plastered on the front page of the NY Times, Obama invited Walmart's CEO to a White House business summit as if the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act didn't exist.

Like other networks, The Maddow Show did not see fit to cover this bribery scandal on TV (that I could find). Maddow did cover it on her blog, and took aim at Walmart on her Facebook page, but not her MSNBC show - I couldn't find a Maddow TV segment on Walmart's excesses since this 2011 piece, long before the "get to know the real Walmart" media spending spree. 

The Adverse Side Effects of Pharmaceutical Ads

Also causing nausea the heavy rotation of pharmaceutical ads on all of MSNBC's shows. Besides the notoriety of that industry's parade of record-shattering liability settlements, sitting through their ads is frankly depressing. A daily listener of Maddow (who cannot skip commercials) has to hear a barrage of ads about chronic erectile difficulty, tumorous growths, paralysis, or uncontrollable urges to simultaneously projectile vomit and urinate - you get the idea.

I wonder if those ads, repeated all day long on MSNBC are intentional brain pollution, grossing viewers out to the point where they can't stand watching anymore. 

But it also turns the stomach to see the beaming moms in commercials, happy to feed their kids the goodness of high-fructose corn syrup - or the guys in hard hats monitoring mile-long gas wells on computer screens, knowing they are shooting carcinogens into the ground and don't even measure the greenhouse gases that invisibly escape.

I consider Maddow a brave, articulate fighter of corporate malfeasance, but I wonder how she negotiates the internal culture at MSNBC/NBC, as they sell airtime to these sponsors, benefiting from access and favor with powerful political interests. We know how all the other networks deal with the conflict...whitewash. 

As for Maddow's possible muzzle, we'll see if this GMO mention was a blink or a breach in future reports as other states pursue labeling initiatives.  To date, only Connecticut has passed a GMO labeling law, but it won't take effect unless states with combined populations totaling 20 million pass similar laws. Tiny Vermont seems to be the next state moving a law through, but the industry is poised to spend and sue, ready with plenty of cash to smother the idea wherever it pops up next. Will Maddow cover this?

UPDATE: In order to win the debate once and for all, the fracking industry has begun funding a new type of "covert" ad, with the biggest names in center-left media lining up for the cash, including MSNBC, Huffington Post, The NY Times, The New Yorker, Buzzfeed and the AP.

Reporting in Counterpunch, environmental watchdog Steve Horn unpacks the new trend in "native ads", or new media content created specifically for paying advertisers that look and seem like articles but are manufactured for hire. 

The NY Times prefers to call it "branded content", with the business division all for it and top editorial staff openly questioning the practice. Not surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post are also playing this sneaky new game, but the pact between the hydrofracking industry and the so-called liberal media is a shocking rubber-hits-the-road development that proves MSNBC is not at all neutral, despite Rachel Maddow's quaint reporting against the risky practice.

The fracking lobbyists at America's Natural Gas Alliance  are proudly co-sponsoring the launch of MSNBC's new website as part of an all-fronts money assault, greasing top Democrats, liberal groups, and environmental organizations while they target small children with pro-fracking school curriculum.

With formerly venerable press outlets leveraging their brand and credibility to become propaganda mills for the highest bidder, the Federal Trade Commission has taken an interest, scheduling a "workshop" December 4th that will discuss concerns over disclosure and consumer confusion, and potentially propose clearer labeling.