Prometheus 6

Well, we've seen the explanation of why the CBC Institute is teaming up with FOX.

According to a Roll Call story from April 2004, 17 members of the CBC, along with many members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, signed a letter to Nielsen's CEO suggesting its new system would be racially biased against minority-oriented shows -- many of them carried by News Corp.

They hired the Glover Park Group, and other lobbying and PR firms, to assemble the "coalition," something that later became grist for Nielsen's (successful) counter-attack.

At the time, News Corp.'s gambit was viewed as, depending on who you asked, either a masterwork of corporate P.R., or of cynicism or both, but in any case, Rupert and the CBC do go way back.

If you want to know more, BusinessWeek had the definitive (and Nielsen-friendly) story on the subject and the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett got into the inner workings of just who News Corp. paid on the New York front of its campaign.

ALSO: As I reported yesterday, a spokeswoman for the CBC says there's no financial element to the debate arrangement.

*The CBC is co-hosting debates with CNN too.

UPDATE: I'm reminded that Fox News also recently put former CBC star Harold Ford on contract.

I think Uncle Ben convinced them to go for theirs. I don't think this raunchy series of deals has very much to do with Black folks' issues. So I added a new block on the sidebar. Since it's only a little tiny bit of HTML, I attached it to this post. Just in case it might be useful.