As was reported yesterday, the NY Times offered a significant discount to MoveOn.org for their anti General Petraeus ad. Today a complaint has been filed by ‘Uncle Jimbo’ at Blackfive.net alleging this discount violated FEC regulations.

Here is his letter:

Office of General Counsel
Federal Election Commission
999 E Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20463

Dear Folks,

Sept. 10, 2007 the political advocacy group MoveOn.org ran an ad in the NY Times with the headline, Gen. Petraeus or Gen. Betray Us.

This ad also says “Cooking the books for the White House” making it political communications and subject to FEC regulations. It has been reported that MoveOn paid $65,000 for the ad by

ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/story?id=3581727&page=1

and the NY Post
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09132007/news/nationalnews/times_gives_lefties_a_hefty_di.htm.

The rate card price of such an ad on the NY Times political advocacy rate card is $181,692.

I sold political advertising for Capital Newspapers in Madison, WI during the 2006 elections. We were informed that there could be absolutely no discounts to the rate card prices for political or advocacy advertising based on federal law. The reason was self-evidently to stop the paper from favoring one viewpoint over another. It seems evident that if the reports are true, the NY Times has favored MoveOn by offering a huge discount to them for political advocacy advertising.

I request an investigation to determine if the law has been broken by the NY Times and/or MoveOn.org.

Complainant:

James Hanson
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Madison, WI 53703
XXXXXXXXXXXX
jimbo AT unclejimbo.com

Respondents:
MoveOn.org
New York Times

Cordially,
Jim

Rudy Guliani is now requesting the same price for an opposing ad:

Click To Play

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