Coincidence? After Major Union Paid $100K for 'Public Relations' Services, Media Matters Started Campaign Against Fox News

Shortly after the largest labor union in the U.S., the National Education Association (NEA), paid Media Matters For America $100,000 in 2011 for "public relations" services, the liberal messaging group began its crusade against all things Fox News and its seemingly endless promotion of teachers unions, the Daily Caller reports.

“[T]o ensure that NEA’s agenda makes its way in the media,” Citadel international politics professor Mallory Factor wrote in Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind, “NEA has given $100,000 to Media Matters, the George Soros-funded liberal ‘charitable organization’ dedicated to targeting mythical right-wing media bias.”

And now the Daily Caller has obtained documents proving Factor’s claim.

"The data is from the Labor Department’s LM-2 form, a disclosure required whenever a union disburses $5,000 or more to an outside entity. In one such 2011 filing, the NEA reported paying Media Matters $100,000 and referred to it as a 'political organization,'" TheDC reports.

"Complicating matters for the teachers union is the fact that the same report categorized the $100,000 payment as a ‘union administration’ cost instead of as a political expenditure,” the report adds.

Media Matters Funds From NEA

And you know what? The NEA wasn’t the only union in 2011 to shell out cash to Media Matters: The AFL-CIO gave $10,000 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees gave $5,000.

Both donations are referred to in official documents as "political activities."

“The NEA’s choice to call its much larger payment a ‘union administration’ cost leaves open the possibility that it could charge the expense to non-members -- known as ‘agency fee payers’ -- who are nonetheless covered by the union’s collective bargaining agreement,” TheDC reports.

When asked by TheDC whether other nonprofit organizations have provided them publicity in exchange for cash, an NEA spokesman declined to comment. The spokesman also declined to comment on the services provided to them by Media Matters.

Media Matters also declined to comment.

“A careful reading of Media Matters’ website, however, suggests the NEA got a significant bang for its buck. Since the date of the $100,000 payment, the liberal messaging group has published 41 separate articles online referring to the NEA and other teachers unions, each one staking out a position that’s favorable to organized labor and critical of a media outlet whose commentators disagree,” TheDC reports.

“Almost universally, that media outlet has been the Fox News Channel. Of those 41 articles, 29 directly attacked Fox News or the name of a Fox host or contributor in their headlines. Many others attack Fox and its personnel more generally,” the report adds.

Blaze readers may recall that many of these attacks were aimed at none other than Glenn Beck.

The NEA "has been a political organization for decades," said Don Loos, a senior adviser to National Right to Work president Mark Mix.

Click here to read TheDC’s full report.

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