Media top headlines May 5
The Facebook Advisory Board’s ruling on former President Donald Trump’s account and more round out today’s top media headlines.
A left-wing 501(c)3 organization that bills itself as a media watchdog group defended Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm from criticism of her recent holdings in the green energy sector after President Biden virtually-toured and touted an electric omnibus manufacturer she had seven-figure investments in until taking her current post.
Media Matters for America, a Washington group founded by 1990s conservative-turned-contemporary liberal political consultant David Brock, criticized what they called "right wing media" for reporting on Granholm's investments in Proterra.
President Biden took a virtual tour of Proterra's Greenville, S.C., plant earlier this week and has touted the company as part of his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure package.
However, as the Washington Free Beacon reported, Granholm – a former Michigan Democratic governor – had between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 invested in the Burlingame, Calif.-based vehicle manufacturer: a figure gleaned from her recent federal financial disclosure report.
Granholm pledged to relinquish her board position with Proterra if confirmed to the Biden cabinet, and also divest from a handful of other companies including a solar panel company and North Carolina electric utility Duke Energy.
Media Matters accused the Washington Free Beacon and Fox News of creating a "fake scandal" about the former Michigan governor -- while simultaneously reporting that she had not yet divested her stock options. Granholm is however within the 180-day window to legally do so.
According to the same financial disclosure, however, Granholm was previously a "senior advisor" to Media Matters between 2017 and 2020, and was paid as much as $200,624 net in monthly retainer fees. She was also most recently a CNN political commentator.
Media Matters criticized Fox News after EWTN news director Raymond Arroyo, a Fox News contributor, noted that Biden and Granholm's infrastructure bill would allocate $174 million to green vehicles and $45 billion to zero-emission buses.
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"The fix is in. This is a bad look," Arroyo told "The Ingraham Angle" earlier this week after airing a clip of Biden's video Q&A with a Proterra employee.
A 2018 bio for Granholm on the University of California-Berkeley – where she both graduated and was an educator – made note of her advisorship at Media Matters, as well as American Bridge, a Brock-founded SuperPAC.