NBC partners with Dem political firm for 2016
NBC News is partnering with TargetSmart, a political data firm founded by Democrats that was also hired by the Democratic National Committee to provide voter information for the 2016 election.
The partnership between NBC News and TargetSmart is intended to "enhance election coverage and study the voting process in America in depth," according to a Tuesday press release from NBC.
Data provided by TargetSmart, which was founded in 2006 by veteran Democratic operatives Jeff Ferguson and Paula Kowalczuk, will allow NBC News "to perform non-partisan analysis, research voting habits, and identify voting trends at the state and local levels," the release said.
But TargetSmart is also in business with the DNC, all the way through the 2016 election. In August 2014, the data firm announced that it had been hired by the DNC to "to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot and across the nation."
TargetSmart's CEO Drew Brighton said at the time, "We continue to enhance and innovate the Democratic Party's data infrastructure, which will allow the Democratic Party to maintain their strategic advantage …"
The matchup between NBC's news division and a Democratic outfit could raise questions about the network's political coverage of the 2016 race. But a spokesperson for NBC News dismissed any idea of impartiality.
"TargetSmart serves as an aggregator to provide public, nonpartisan voter data," the spokesperson said in an email to the Washington Examiner media desk. "Our election team will use it for our own independent analysis."
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