In an unexpected bipartisan alliance, the liberal watchdog Media Matters For America is planning to back the Republican National Committee's campaign to pressure NBC and CNN into canceling their respective Hillary Clinton film projects, POLITICO has learned.
On Tuesday evening, Media Matters founder and longtime Clinton ally David Brock will send letters to the leadership at NBC Entertainment and CNN International expressing support for RNC chairman Reince Priebus and his pledge to pull the two networks' rights to moderate or sponsor Republican primary debates unless they pull their film projects.
Brock's motive is different from Priebus's, of course. In addition to heading MMFA, Brock is the chairman of American Bridge super PAC, which recently launched an effort called "Correct the Record" to protect Clinton and other Democrats from "Republican smears." In his letters to NBC and CNN, Brock suggests that the "right-wing noise machine" is already pressuring those networks "to adopt its ideological lens on Clinton."
"Given that this project could coincide with a potential Clinton campaign, the timing raises too many questions about fairness and conflicts of interest ahead of the 2016 election," Brock writes in letters to both NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt and CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker, which were obtained by POLITICO.
NBC Entertainment has announced plans to produce a mini-series about Hillary Clinton starring Diane Lane, while CNN has announced plans to produce a feature-length documentary about Clinton that will air in theaters and on the network. Both networks have stressed that their news divisions will have no part in the projects.
In his letters, Brock asks both Greenblatt and Zucker to explain why they would allow their news brands "to be tarnished" by their entertainment divisions' "pursuit of entertainment."
"Is your network also prepared to respond to criticism it is not being fair to other potential candidates?" he asks. "How will your network respond to the right-wing noise machine that is already pressuring you to adopt its ideological lens on Clinton?"
"Unless you are prepared to answer these concerns, those raised by Mr. Priebus, and others that will likely arise in the future, I call on you to reconsider this programming," he writes.
In his own letters to Greenblatt and Zucker on Monday, Priebus likewise expressed his "deep disappointment" over those networks' decisions to produce films "promoting former Secretary Hillary Clinton ahead of her likely candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016."
In a round of interviews this week, Priebus has since reiterated his commitment to keeping both NBC and CNN off the list of potential hosts and sponsors for the 2016 Republican primary debates.
"The reality is, it doesn't matter whether the movies are positive or negative or in between," Priebus told Fox News on Tuesday. "Presidential elections are huge cultural votes, and when you have media colluding with a potential front-runner on the Democratic side of the aisle... it creates the cult of personality."
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