As if I haven't antagonized the righties enough lately, I feel compelled to continue poking them with sticks with this story, though it really cuts both ways and may even hurt the lefties more:
Attack on Obama Riles Beck's Advertisers
You can get the background from the story but just to fill in the blanks if you want to skip the read, I'll do a Prime J style bullet list:
- During the Gates controversy when Obama made his ill-fated remark about Cambridge police acting stupidly, there was the usual response from the talkie people, including Glenn Beck who called the president " a racist with a deeply rooted hatred of white people and their culture."
- This pissed some people off.
- A time honored way of expressing disapproval by people disagreeing with commentators is to launch campaigns to boycott their sponsors. (It's done by both sides.)
- This has happened to Beck--a group representing minorities called ColorofChange has conducted a very successful boycotting campaign and got thirty or so sponsors to drop his show.
- They're also dropping other controversial shows both left and right because of the potential for consumer fallout
I find it a very enheartening development. If taste and common sense and good manners can't keep talk show hosts between the ditches, maybe some monetary pressure will. I'm not trying to discourage anyone's right to make an ass of themselves on TV or radio, as it's one of my main sources of entertainment, but I do think a little moderation in tone *from all* would be nice.
Of course, when you have the top-rated shows on your network, it's hard to imagine anything too extreme happening. The lefty shows will be hardest hit as they have a much smaller audience--and I'm sure Beck could pass the hat and recoup all the ad money FOX has lost in two days from his supporters, but I'm trying to look on it as a hopeful sign.
