Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch has filed suit against Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) for allegedly sharing its donor lists with more than 100 organizations, including the Democratic National Committee.
The suit, filed in Ramsey County District Court, St. Paul, alleges that MPR–best known for Garrison Keillor’s program, “A Prairie Home Companion — allowed some 100 organizations to use its member information, including telephone numbers, and exchanged member phone numbers with at least nine organizations in 27 different transactions since Jan. 1, 1995.
“This translates into three million member names, addresses, and phone numbers disclosed for fundraising solicitations,” said Hatch in a statement.
That statement went on to say that MPR also failed to disclose in its brochures and Web site the volume or identity of the organizations that it gave the information. And while the brochures state that members’ names “might be exchanged with other organizations,” they fail to mention that that their addresses and telephone numbers are also exchanged and “that this information is used for fundraising solicitations.”
MPR, that statement continued, “claims it exchanges information with groups which it thinks [its] members may be interested,” but “has shown no evidence of any attempt to determine the interests of its members in particular organizations.”
Calls to Hatch’s office for more information were not returned at deadline.
Will Haddeland, MPR’s senior vice president, called the suit “frivolous [because it] turns principally on the meaning of the word occasional. MPR, he said “exchanged the name of an individual donor an average of approximately six times a year over the past five years, which in our lexicon is occasional.”
He also said that MPR “engages in list exchange practices which comply with professional and ethical standards, and are consistent with the practices of virtually every other nonprofit organization” in the state.
Last July the Corporation for Public Broadcasting adopted tough new guidelines governing mailing list activities of its members. The guidelines were adopted following the May admission by Boston public television WGBH that it improperly traded mailing list names with both the Democratic and Republican National Committees.
Public radio and television stations are expressly prohibited from selling, renting, leasing, loaning, trading, donating, or exchanging their membership or donor lists with “any candidate for public office, committees or organizations that solicit funds for use in political campaigns.
They also require public radio and television stations to maintain active control over their membership and donor lists, including the sale and rental of those lists, and protecting the privacy of those who request it by offering an opt-out provision. Failure to follow the guidelines could affect the funding of public radio and television stations.
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