News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch said last week that his company's news-making donations to Republican organizations were in the best interest of both his shareholders and the American people.
When confronted on a shareholder conference call over News Corp's $1 million donations to both the Republican Governors Association and the GOP-friendly US Chamber of Commerce, Murdoch defended the company's actions.
"In these two donations you're speaking of, we judged it to be in the best interest of the company," Murdoch responded. "It has nothing to do with the editorial policies or the journalism or the films or anything else."
He would go on to explain that the donations were also made in the best interest of the American people.
"We believe that it's certainly in the interest of the country and of all the shareholders and the prosperity of the -- that there be a degree of -- a fair amount of change in Washington," he said.
Murdoch acknowledged that the donations were "unusual," but reiterated his justification for them.
"They were unusual, and we made them because we decided that was in the interest of our shareholders and the country," he said.