Politico

The main US Spanish-language nightly news programs skew liberal on domestic issues and spent most of their air times in the last few months covering the new health care law, immigration reform, and immigration law enforcement, the conservative-leaning media watchdog group Media Research Center found in a new study.

Ken Oliver-Méndez, Director of MRC’s new Spanish-language watchdog group MRC Latino, said in an interview that of the newscasts of Noticiero Univision and Noticiero Telemundo from November through February, 45 percent of stories on US domestic policy issues tilted liberal, 49 percent were balanced or neutral and 6 percent skewed conservative.

According to the study, Univision’s stories tilted left 50 percent of the time, were balanced 43 percent and were perceived as conservative 7 percent of the time, while Telemundo’s stories tilted left 54 percent of the time, were balanced 40 percent of the time and tilted conservative 5 percent of the time. The study also found that Democratic surrogates and liberal-leaning groups were featured on both networks more frequently than Republicans or conservative groups, but the group also faulted conservatives for not reaching out more to Latino media.

There’s little that tends to unite a leading liberal like Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) and a conservative firebrand like Ted Cruz (R-TX). But when the two senators join their colleagues for a hearing on Comcast’s $45 billion bid for Time Warner Cable, many of them will have something in common -- they’ve each collected Comcast cash.

The cable giant historically has been a major Beltway player, and it’s sure to strengthen its political offense in order to sell the new, controversial megadeal. Yet even before announcing its plans for Time Warner Cable, Comcast had donated to almost every member of Congress who has a hand in regulating it. In fact, money from Comcast’s political action committee has flowed to all but three members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Checks have landed in the campaign coffers of Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT), who oversee the chamber’s antitrust panel. Meanwhile, the cable giant has donated in some way to 32 of the 39 members of the House Judiciary Committee, which is planning a hearing of its own. And Comcast has canvassed the two congressional panels that chiefly regulate cable, broadband and other telecom issues, donating to practically every lawmaker there -- including Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). Comcast stresses its donations are a function of its business. “Comcast is a very sophisticated political player.

They know that the money they give to both Republicans and Democrats buys them access -- everybody admits that in Washington today,” said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation. “So they have covered their bases by giving to nearly every single member of the committees that do oversight.”