# Political Donations > **We searched 412** executives, board members, investors, and owners of **90** [Top Us Media News Organizations](/index-us-mainstream-media-ownership) ranked by monthly traffic. > > - We found only 60 of 412 US Mainstream Media owners and execs at these 90 media orgs donated to political campaigns through FEC individual donation rules. **That is, 14.5% donate over $1,000.** We found the number of people giving surprisingly low. > - Executives at over a third (35) of the 90 media organizations had given openly to politicians, traditional PACs and parties. > - **The 60 donors came from 35 of the media orgs** as some organizations had more than one executive who **donated to political parties with over $2,000**. ## Political Donations of Media Owners, Funders and Execs 1. We wanted to explore the political donation patterns of the most influential US media companies. We took a sample of owners, donors, C-suite executives, and editors of leading new organizations to chart any clear individual political donation patterns. 2. Took 90 of the top US Media in our 2021 Ownership Index (176 media properties ranked by traffic). 3. Added a mix of owners, CEOs, key shareholders or donors, and editors to a total of 412 individuals. 4. Searched all 412 people on the FEC site to track political donations. We found this number surprisingly low: **Only 14.5% (60 of 412) executives and owners of major media openly give to political parties,** based on FEC data. These donors came from 35 of the 90 news outlets we studied. (Some outlets had multiple donors.) Unfortunately, we were unable to track super PAC donations and are left wanting for more information and data around Super PAC donation patterns. We created two indexes: A summary of the 60 Media Owners or Executives Who Donated to Politics in 2020-2021. Sixty execs from 35 news organizations donated to an individual candidate, a traditional PAC or to a party which is fully trackable on the FEC website. Whereas with super PACS, there is no transparency tool or clear search available to discover who is donating to them and who the Super PAC funds. A summary of 90 of The Top US Mainstream Media Outlets and over 400 executives, donors, owners and editors and their political donations in 2020-2021, according to Federal Election Commissions database search tool. 2020 Political Ad Spending: Insider reported in October 2020 that The 2020 presidential and congressional elections will be the most expensive in history, with campaigns and affiliated organizations expected to spend $10.8 billion overall, per new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics as cited by CNBC. That money had to come from somewhere. Super PAC spending (per OpenSecrets.org): ‘Super PACs are a relatively new type of committee that arose following the July 2010 federal court decision in a case known as SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates, and their spending must not be coordinated with that of the candidates they benefit. Super PACs are required to report their donors to the Federal Election Commission on a monthly or semiannual basis — the super PAC's choice — in off-years, and monthly in the year of an election. As of July 30, 2021: 2,276 groups organized as super PACs have reported total receipts of $3,427,543,995 Total independent expenditures of $2,128,047,603 in the 2019-2020 cycle.” (The Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in Politics are joining forces to become OpenSecrets. Its site says stay tuned for more data, new tools and greater impact.) Thank you to Harvard rising sophomore Riley Kunz and Tufts rising senior Allie Birger for helping to compile this data over the summer of 2021. As always, thanks to Liz Salazar at IQSS for helping to build this site. 1. Took 90 of the top US Media in our 2021 Ownership Index (176 media properties ranked by traffic). 2. Added a mix of owners, CEOs, key shareholders or donors, and editors to a total of 412 individuals. 3. Searched all 412 people on the FEC site to track political donations.