{"id":305028,"date":"2017-04-24T21:45:37","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T20:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/giving-nys-governor-a-783000-bribe-is-business-as-usual-for-rupert-murdoch\/"},"modified":"2017-04-24T21:45:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T20:45:37","slug":"giving-nys-governor-a-783000-bribe-is-business-as-usual-for-rupert-murdoch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/giving-nys-governor-a-783000-bribe-is-business-as-usual-for-rupert-murdoch\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving NY\u2019s Governor a $783,000 Bribe Is Business as Usual for Rupert Murdoch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Buffalo<\/p>\n

Buffalo News<\/strong> (4\/18\/17<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A Buffalo News<\/strong> headline (4\/18\/17<\/a>) asked a pointed question about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “How Did Cuomo Make $783,000 on Memoir That Sold 3,200 Copies?”<\/p>\n

The accompanying article did not delve particularly deep into the mystery, beyond noting that the royalty amounts to $245 per copy for a book that retails on Amazon<\/strong> for $13.05, and that it more than doubled Cuomo’s income for 2016, when his $216,000 in royalties topped the $168,000 he got as his gubernatorial salary. “This payment was contractual and per the agreement with the publisher,” a Cuomo spokesperson told the News<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The identity of that publisher\u2014HarperCollins<\/strong>, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp<\/strong>\u2014goes a long way to solving the mystery: Murdoch has long made a practice of funneling large payments to influential politicians via HarperCollins<\/strong> book contracts, in what amounts to a system of legalized bribery.<\/p>\n

More than 20 years ago, Mother Jones<\/strong> (5\u20136\/95<\/a>) was already remarking on HarperCollins<\/strong>\u2019 reputation as “publisher to the powerful,” noting the $5.4 million it gave British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher\u00a0 for her “almost unreadable memoirs,” the $1 million it gave Deng Xiaoping’s daughter for what the New Yorker<\/strong> (2\/13\/95) described as “a turgid, barely literate piece of propaganda,” and the $4.5 million it offered US House Speaker Newt Gingrich for his turgid<\/a> To Renew America<\/em>. (After critics pointed out that the House was considering telecommunications legislation that would impact Murdoch very directly, Gingrich turned down an advance in favor of straight royalties, a choice that the Washington Post<\/strong>\u201411\/4\/95<\/a>\u2014estimated reduced the speaker’s payday by about two-thirds.)<\/p>\n

Other politicians who have benefited from Murdoch’s editorial generosity include Ted Cruz, who reportedly received an advance in the neighborhood of $1.5 million\u00a0 (New Republic<\/strong>, 10\/20\/15<\/a>), Sarah Palin ($1.25 million\u2014Guardian<\/strong>, 10\/27\/09<\/a>), George W. Bush (a comparatively modest $130,000\u2014New York Times<\/strong>, 4\/18\/00<\/a>), and UK prime ministers John Major (\u00a3400,000\u2014Guardian<\/strong>, 11\/2\/99<\/a>) and David Cameron (\u00a3800,000\u2014Daily Mail<\/strong>, 10\/25\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n

What do you get for that kind of money? Well, in the case of Cuomo, Matthew Cunningham-Cook and David Sirota\u00a0 (International Business Times<\/strong>, 2\/25\/15<\/a>) pointed out that during his tenure as governor, Cuomo has repeatedly backed policies that benefited Murdoch’s News Corp<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\n

One of the initiatives was a bill that created a special sales tax break for online-only publications that charge for subscriptions. News Corporation<\/strong>, which was one of the two companies that lobbied for the bill, was at the time investing tens of millions of dollars in such a publication. Another initiative was a special tax exemption that Cuomo\u2019s administration created for electronic books, which are sold by, among others, HarperCollins<\/strong>. State records list News Corporation<\/strong> as lobbying Cuomo\u2019s tax department in the months before the exemption was announced. And, while News Corporation<\/strong> lobbied the governor\u2019s office in 2012, Cuomo championed an expansion<\/a>\u00a0of controversial film and television tax credits that have benefited News Corporation<\/strong>\u2019s films<\/a>, and that News Corporation<\/strong> had lobbied for in the past<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cuomo has rejected the idea that statewide officials like himself should be subject to caps on outside income, arguing that it’s unnecessary (Daily News<\/strong>, 1\/19\/15<\/a>): “I’m not allowed to represent anyone or any business matter.”<\/p>\n

And if you believe that, I’ve got a book I’d like to sell you for three-quarters of a million dollars.<\/p>\n

\n

Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org<\/a><\/strong>. You can find him on Twitter<\/strong> at @JNaureckas<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Research assistance: Joshua Cho<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buffalo News (4\/18\/17) A Buffalo News headline (4\/18\/17) asked a pointed question about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “How Did Cuomo Make $783,000 on Memoir That Sold 3,200 Copies?” The accompanying article did not delve particularly deep into the mystery, beyond noting that the royalty amounts to $245 per copy for a book that retails […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-305028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}