House Speaker Newt Gingrich says many newspaper editorial boards contain "socialists" and suggested businesses reconsider advertising in papers that oppose their views.
"I think it's perfectly legitimate in a free society for people to decide where they'll put their money and their impact," Gingrich said Wednesday on Fox TV.Gingrich declined to identify by name those he referred to as socialists, "but I'd be glad to get you a collection of editorials that only make sense if people believe that government's good and the free market is bad."
"Surely you can't really argue that there aren't a substantial number of news editorial pages that start from an extraordinary pro-government, anti-free market bias," he said.
Gingrich told business executives at a private dinner Monday night that the establishment press was the "mortal enemy" of GOP reformers, according to The Washington Post.
The newspaper quoted Gingrich as saying in an interview Tuesday that he had told the executives they "need to find alternative methods" of getting their message across because of the presence of socialists on many editorial boards.
When asked in the interview whether he was advocating an advertising boycott, Gingrich replied he was merely suggesting that executives who advertise "ought to go to the publishers and tell them" they disliked the newspaper's editorial stance.
Tony Blankley, Gingrich's press secretary, was quoted as saying the Georgia Republican has made similar comments in the past.
He said the speaker's message to business executives is that "if they believe in free markets and the newspaper editorializes against free markets, they're under no obligation to advertise. If they think a particular news outlet is not helpful, they're not obliged to continue advertising."
One of Gingrich's definitions of a socialist is someone who believes that raising or lowering taxes has no effect on economic conduct, Blankley said.
But, Blankley added, according to the Post, "Certainly there's nothing un-American about being a socialist."