...is there a difference? The donors tend to have just as much of an agenda to push

rightbyte 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think the point is that the donors should have an another political agenda than the political agenda of whatever companies that pays for ads.

	▲	dpoloncsak 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The donors are just going to be the figureheads of these companies, right? That's already how it tends to work... Tesla/SpaceX didn't donate to Trump's campaign, Musk did. It wasn't Palantir, it was Peter Thiel. (to my knowledge but I honestly didn't check the dono rolls, just going off remembering headlines here) Either way, the outcome is basically the same. If they ban companies donating, CEOs will donate with a wink wink, as the cost of the donation is peanuts to the profit they'll make. These aren't your standard donations for tax-writeoffs (though I'm sure it helps, too), these are purchases of influence My pops used to work for Lockheed, and every couple of years he would get a big bonus, then tapped on the shoulder that it was 'his year to donate' to PACs. They'd let him keep enough to cover taxes plus a little extra, but it was understood why he suddenly got a large bonus. This was back in the 80s, so maybe things have changed since, but I'm sure whatever regulations have been put in place are easily avoidable. The people who wrote the laws are the same ones taking the bribes. If you're suggesting "The good guys just need to out-donate the bad guys", the unfortunate reality is the bad guys are donating because it makes them money, so they can afford to. Nobody bankrolls good deeds that lose money.

It might also be the case that one single "donor" puts in like 60% of the budget.

But that is also no different from one single client being 60% of your revenue.

In both cases, they'll be calling some shots.

	▲	pessimizer an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Better that than a press that won't say anything that will upset entire industries because they're afraid that ads will get withdrawn. It's been postulated that the only reason for pharmaceutical ads is to suppress critical reporting on the industry; the amount of spending on them is preposterous, while the amount of sales that TV and news ads pushes is likely tiny. Which is probably why all the "reporting" we get now is rewritten press releases about what a miracle the new drug is - the endless breathless stories push more sales than the actual ads. Even if your 60% guy owns a pharmaceutical company, he might even be happier to push reporting on the problems with other pharmaceutical companies.