Chris Matthews, Gas Bag and GOP Pocket-Lining Lobbyist Stooge for MSNBC

From the good folks at AmericaBlog and Think Progress (whose material is copied below):

ThinkProgress has learned that NBC anchor Chris Matthews has received tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for delivering speeches to corporate interest groups. Matthews’s speaking engagements appear to be in direct violation of NBC’s policy prohibiting its employees from accepting such fees.

Last week Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest documented Matthews’s speaking engagements, but was unable to confirm whether he was paid.

In 2002, Howard Kurtz reported in the Washington Post:

I’ve been critical of journalistic buckraking since the mid-1990s, when I wrote about a $30,000 speech that Sam Donaldson had given to an insurance group…The issue began to fade as a number of news organizations, including ABC and NBC, banned the practice.
Three trade associations independently confirmed to ThinkProgress that Matthews spoke for hefty fees on several occasions, as recently as last year

Chris has these lovely "bipartisan" panels now that consist entirely of right-wing nutcases like Joe (there's a dead female worker in my office but let's not discuss that) Scarborough, Monica (Dick Nixon is the greatest American ever) Crowley, and Tucker (I'm such a shill) Carlson, sometimes balanced out by Pat (I'm a whore and proud of it) Buchanan. Bipartisan? Right.