Newspapers and television stations reaped a financial windfall from the BP oil spill — and continue to benefit as the company spends millions on advertising to repair its battered image following the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

BP spent $93.4 million on ads between April 1 and July 31, according to Politico. That’s triple the amount from the same period one year ago. The information was included in a letter from House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Fla.) to Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).

BP began its flurry of ads shortly after the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20 and has continued to target national and local outlets seven weeks after the well was capped. Newspapers and TV stations have been the biggest beneficiaries. (more…)

If you’re tuning in to Sunday’s lineup of network TV news shows, remember this interesting fact: Democrats received 88 percent of 2008 political contributions from ABC, CBS and NBC executives, writers and reporters. Their donations to Democrats totaled more than $1 million.

The Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott has the scoop. Working with the Center for Responsive Politics — proprietor of OpenSecrets.org — Tapscott discovered the overwhelming imbalance. Here’s a breakdown of the data by party affiliation:

• The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.

• By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.

Why is this relevant (more…)

WJLA-TV, a Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate, suspended reporter Doug McKelway following his alleged “partisan” comments at a liberal rally on Capitol Hill marking the three-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. Video of the broadcast tells a different story:

Apparently facts are now “partisan.”

McKelway stuck to the truth about BP’s political contributions and pending cap-and-trade legislation, newsworthy subjects given that the event’s organizers were lobbying to “pass legislation to end America’s addiction to oil and urged lawmakers to donate campaign money raised from the oil industry to the clean-up efforts in the Gulf.”

According to the Washington Post, it was McKelway’s supposedly controversial comments on July 20 that led to his suspension. Anonymous sources at the station are now accusing him of “insubordination” in an apparent attempt to fire him. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal must be doing something right, even if it doesn’t have the respect of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

The latest numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations show the Journal with a healthy gain of 3.37 percent over the six-month period that ended March 31. With an average circulation of 2,092,523 during the workweek, it remains the most-read newspaper in America.

Yet success on the newsstands hasn’t translated into recognition among the newspaper’s peers. Even though the Journal continues to innovate — recently launching a local edition to challenge an old rival, the New York Times — the newspaper hasn’t won a Pulitzer Prize since 2007.

In other words, the Journal hasn’t been awarded journalism’s most coveted prize since conservative publisher Rupert Murdoch acquired the newspaper.

As the New York Observer recently noted, former Journal editor Paul Steiger has won more awards running ProPublica, the liberal-leaning nonprofit, than the Journal has since Murdoch bought Dow Jones & Co., its publisher, from the Bancroft family.

What does the 18-member Pulitzer board have against the Journal? (more…)