The financial entanglements between MSNBC host Al Sharpton and the Kamala Harris campaign, revealed this week by the Washington Free Beacon, are a "black eye" for the liberal network and media industry, according to a journalism group considered the "gold standard" of media ethics.
"This kind of entanglement harms the credibility of the journalist, the news organization, and journalism overall, and credibility is difficult to restore," Rod Hicks, the director of ethics and diversity at the Society of Professional Journalists, told the Free Beacon. "While Sharpton may not consider himself a journalist, many viewers do."
Hicks was responding to two separate donations the Harris campaign made to Sharpton’s National Action Network on Sept. 5 and Oct. 1. Days later, Sharpton aired a video segment on his MSNBC show PoliticsNation of Harris wishing him a happy 70th birthday. Sharpton conducted a favorable interview with Harris on Oct. 20 as part of her final campaign pitch to voters. He did not disclose in those segments or any of his other appearances on MSNBC that Harris’s campaign gave a sizable remittance to his nonprofit.
Sharpton’s "apparent conflict of interest is part of a troubling trend among network news anchors who inform the public while engaging in unethical behavior," said Hicks, who added that news organizations’ failures to disclose conflicts of interest "builds distrust among their audiences and places a black eye on both their network and the profession."
It comes both as Americans’ trust in news organizations has reached historic lows and as MSNBC hemorrhages viewers in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. Just 31 percent of Americans have a "great deal" of trust in the mass media, according to a Gallup poll conducted last month, compared with 36 percent who have "no trust at all." MSNBC’s primetime viewership fell 53 percent in the wake of the election, the New York Times reported.
MSNBC and its parent company Comcast have not responded to repeated inquiries this week about the Harris campaign's donations to National Action Network, which Sharpton founded in 1991. The nonprofit paid Sharpton $650,000 in 2021, and $940,000 the same year for private jets and limo services. Sharpton also earns a seven-figure salary from MSNBC, which he joined in 2011.
Tim Graham, the director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, said it marks a "new low" for Sharpton, who has long been accused of using National Action Network to pressure corporations to make donations in exchange for his public support.
"MSNBC has never shown a shred of interest in ethics from the beginning of their affiliation with Sharpton," said Graham. "This should make all journalists realize that MSNBC is not an honest or ethical ‘news’ network."
Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly called the arrangement "irresponsible, unethical, and not allowed."
"I’m dying from the conflict of interest," Kelly said on her SiriusXM show. "It’s so egregious—MSNBC is going to have to respond."
MSNBC has punished employees before for violating its conflict of interest policies. In 2010, then-MSNBC president Phil Griffin suspended Joe Scarborough for two days over $4,000 in campaign donations the former congressman made several years earlier. Griffin suspended liberal host Keith Olbermann that same year over donations to Democratic congressional candidates.
But Griffin’s successor, Rashida Jones, has not made a similar move against Sharpton. That could be because of Jones’s ties to Sharpton and National Action Network. Sharpton’s group gave Jones its "Chairman’s Award" in 2021 and 2024. And Jones introduced Sharpton at a National Action Network gala on Sept. 30 to mark Sharpton’s 70th birthday.
"I am extremely honored to be here to honor Rev," said Jones, who concluded her speech with a hug and kiss for Sharpton.