GEtaliation!

The Empire of Rent-Seeking strikes back.

...GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, whom one would think has better things to do, was so upset that three shareholders -- Deneen Borelli, Jesse Watters and Tom Borelli -- would ask him questions about the GE-owned networks' liberal bias, trade with Iran and lobbying for cap-and-trade that he ordered retaliation against a news media outlet that reported they had done so.

Quoting the LAWeekly story:

GE Chairman Jeff Immelt ordered a GE company-wide ban on all of THR's parent company: advertising, editorial, the works. After a few days, the ban was reduced to GE's NBC Universal against Nielsen Business Media's The Hollywood Reporter and lasted six weeks.

I'm of mixed mind on this. Since GE is a private company, they have the right to do whatever they want to do with their money.

But it certainly is petty and little tacky.

And Immelt did not invent the "GE as Rent-Seeker" model of business. Jack Welch was a master at that; it is known that GE lobbyists wrote most of the tax-reform bill of the first Bush term (which made GE exporting an extremely profitable line-item...)

However, GE does have a serious conflict and is trampling all over the ethics-garden when it simultaneously pushes the "Green Line" of BS over its broadcast "news" networks AND holds significant positions in finance and industry which would profit from "green" profligacy of the Federal Gummint.