Contrary to an irresponsible rumor that began circulating online on April 18, Koch has no involvement whatsoever with the defense of George Zimmerman, the defendant in the Trayvon Martin case.

The exact origin of that rumor remains to be seen but similar falsehoods made by partisan activists in recent days have intentionally sown confusion about Koch.  On March 23, Democratic party operative Karen Finney wrongly accused Koch of a connection with the tragic circumstances surrounding the Trayvon Martin matter.  We provided MSNBC with a formal statement and demonstrable proof that Ms. Finney was deceiving viewers — and yet the network refuses to air those remarks or post them online.

Just days later, former White House aide Van Jones appeared on MSNBC and remarked, “You’ve got all of the passion around Trayvon and what a horrible injustice that was and you can draw a direct line to the Koch brothers.”  We confronted the network about that lie as well and again they refused to air our statement.

Despite MSNBC’s appalling disregard for basic journalism standards, we will continue to set the record straight on this issue as often as necessary.

From: Cohlmia, Melissa
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 9:44 AM
To: ‘Porges, Marian
Subject: RE: Response to MSNBC regarding Karen Finney

Dear Ms. Porges:

Thank you for your response.  With all due respect, I find your response troubling and insufficient to address our concerns regarding Ms. Finney’s false and malicious statements about us.  Contrary to your claim, we correctly stated in our March 27 email that Ms. Finney “accused Koch of a connection with the tragic circumstances surrounding the Trayvon Martin matter.  ‘Who was the Typhoid Mary for this horrible outbreak,’ Finney asked.   She then stated, ‘It’s the usual suspects the Koch brothers…the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point who funded and ghost write these laws.’”  Your email brushes this aside by playing semantics and ignoring the fact that Ms. Finney’s statements were dishonest and baseless.  In addition, you fail to even mention our concerns about activist Van Jones’ false and malicious statements on the April 8th Ed Show that, “You’ve got all of the passion around Trayvon and what a horrible injustice that was and you can draw a direct line to the Koch brothers.”

In light of this information we struggle to understand how your approval of MSNBC’s refusal to post our statement concerning this matter demonstrates is consistent with either journalistic ethics or accountability.  Your claim that our statement was not in response to Ms. Finney’s false statements misses the point.  We issued that statement the day before Ms. Finney’s comments because of our concerns that extremists like Ms. Finney and MSNBC would repeat the malicious lies that The Nation and Mother Jones had first published.  Our experience the past few years has been that MSNBC often repeats the outrageous and distorted allegations about us that are first set forth in the far left blogosphere.  Unfortunately, this has happened once again in this situation and you chose not to address it.

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Ms. Yvette Miley
Executive Editor
MSNBC

Dear Ms. Miley:

We were contacted Monday by one of your producers, Jesse Rodriguez, who indicated that MSNBC would be “running a story” about Koch Industries that afternoon and requesting comment. Although we did provide an on-the-record comment, it turned out that Mr. Rodriguez misrepresented the nature of the piece that was actually broadcast.

In fact, it wasn’t a news story at all. Rather it was a panel segment that featured a political advocate from the Center for American Progress as the primary guest. What’s more, the segment was hosted by a senior fellow on the CAP payroll, Matt Miller. CAP, as you probably know, is actively engaged in a public campaign of political advocacy explicitly aimed in part at Koch Industries.

But Mr. Rodriguez withheld those particulars from us in his note, which I have copied in full below. Had he been forthright about what MSNBC intended, we would have pointed out CAP’s agenda for the record. I should note that, although Mr. Miller cited his affiliation with CAP, that disclosure was meaningless since viewers were not told anything specific about CAP’s obvious conflict of interest regarding us in the analysis that followed.

We also pointed out to Mr. Rodriguez that the original “story” that CAP published was widely debunked by a number of respected economic experts when it first appeared, a fact that was ignored on the air. (You can find some of these countering arguments here, and here.) And finally, we stated that it was “unfortunate that MSNBC relies on and gives a platform to a discredited and ridiculed blog post by a partisan political advocacy group.” Mr. Rodriguez edited all of this from the statement that was read on air.

I am writing both to object to Mr. Rodriguez’s approach and to ask if his conduct here comports with MSNBC’s news standards. If so, it’s hard to see how we can distinguish in the future between requests from MSNBC for input on legitimate news stories and activist-driven debate sessions. I’d also like to ask how MSNBC justifies having paid political advocates like Mr. Miller host segments that purport to objectively analyze subjects about which his advocacy group is actively campaigning?
Sincerely,

Melissa Cohlmia
Director,
Corporate Communication
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

cc:
John Reiss, Executive Producer, Politics

——-

From: Rodriguez, Jesse (NBCUniversal)
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 10:34 AM
To: Cohlmia, Missy;
Subject: Request for comment

Hello. 
 
I am a producer for msnbc’s The Dylan Ratigan Show airing at 4pm ET. 

We are running a story today about the ThinkProgress.org report about Koch Industries (see below).

 Do you have a response to this story? Thank you.

HOW KOCH INDUSTRIES MANIPULATES THE OIL MARKET FOR PROFIT: In recent weeks, gas prices around the country have surged to levels unseen since the 2008 oil spike. However, market fundamentals are not driving the nearly $4.00/gallon gas prices. In fact, under the Obama administration, oil production is at record highs and there is adequate global supply of crude. As Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner Bart Chilton has explained, rampant oil speculation, which is at its highest level on record right now, is to blame for current prices.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/13/koch-industries-price-gouging/

A week later, Marian Porges, Senior Producer for News Standards and Practices at NBC News conceded “this incident is not a reflection of normal procedure at MSNBC”