An excellent investigative piece in the US magazine the Nation reports on the endemic phenomenon of TV pundits roaming the News Shows circuit disguised as neutral analysts when in fact many are out-and-out corporate lobbyists. The examples are compelling: people on the payroll of AIG praise its proposed bailout and defend its practices without their link to the corporation being challenged or even mentioned anywhere on the programmes they go on, supposedly objective analysts advocate more military spending in Afghanistan for “years to come” without their employment by Arms companies ever coming up as a topic and so on…

A key quote:

Since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials–people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests–have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them. Many have been regulars on more than one of the cable networks, turning in dozens–and in some cases hundreds–of appearances.

Of course, one wouldn’t be surprised if the problem existed here in UK too, though the whole Westminster lobbying racket is nowhere near the systematic rottenness of  Washington DC (or so we’d like to believe).