Earlier this week, Politico reported on the business relationship between GOP think tanks and the talk radio right. David Frum makes an analogy:
Just imagine if the CBS Evening News were to accept $2 million from a pharmaceutical company, and then run news spots about the excellent benefits from taking that company's medication. Imagine if the Los Angeles Times accepted $2 million from a company promoting a natural gas pipeline, and then published editorials advocating government approval of the pipeline route. Imagine if columnists at the Financial Times accepted money to tout British bonds or German stocks.
Shocking, right? Yet for millions of Americans, conservative talk radio is a news source much more trusted than CBS or the Los Angeles Times or the Financial Times.
Wilkinson thinks this analogy fails:
More interesting than the superficial pay-to-play aspect of this story is what it reveals about the increasing integration of the conservative economy of influence. What we're seeing is a set of once disparate pieces coming together into a powerfully unified persuasion machine.
The Dish 