For those of you who haven’t heard
about this yet, check it out.
--Andrea
-----Original Message-----
From: Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org
Voter Fund [mailto:moveon-help@list.moveon.org]
Sent:
To: Andrea Shay
Subject: Join the One-Minute
Boycott of CBS
|
Dear friend of MoveOn,
The
CBS networks still refuses to run our winning ad in the Bush in 30 Seconds ad
contest during the Super Bowl. The MoveOn.org non-partisan campaign to get CBS
to air issue ads continues, but we're not going to let CBS's censorship stop us
in the mean time. That's why we're spending over $1 million to air the ad in
our swing states and nation-wide on other channels -- starting with two spots
on CNN that will air during the Super Bowl half time.
This
Sunday, during the Super Bowl half time show, join us in changing channels on
CBS. At 8:
http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/boycott/?id=2294-3696329-4mzBAaCACOJxL8iRwyFk7A
The
number of groups, individuals, and newspapers that have called on CBS to run
our ad is remarkable. The National
Organization for Women and the American
Civil Liberties Union have asked their own members to call CBS. Senator
Dick Durbin (D-IL) gave a powerful
speech about CBS on the floor of the Senate, saying, "Maybe network
executives at CBS are so afraid of political pressure from the right wing and
their business advertisers who are in league with the right wing politics of
America that they are afraid to put anything on the air that might in fact make
things uncomfortable. If that is the case, it is time for CBS to announce the
name of their network is the 'Conservative Broadcasting System' and come clean
with American viewers."
28
members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to CBS
which stated, "The choice not to run this paid advertisement appears to be
part of a disturbing pattern on CBS's part to bow to the wishes of the
Republican National Committee. We remember well CBS's remarkable decision this
fall to self-censor at the direction of GOP pressure. The network shamefully
cancelled a broadcast about former President Ronald Reagan which Republican
partisans considered insufficiently flattering." Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
wrote a separate letter
to CBS urging them to reconsider their decision.
Today,
the L.A. Times printed an Op-Ed piece of ours which lays out the case against
CBS's censorship. That's attached below. But the editorial pages of the Boston
Globe, San
Francisco Chronicle, and many other
papers came out in our favor as well. As the Globe wrote,
"MoveOn.org's 30-second ad, which has aired on CNN, is a gentle yet
powerful depiction of how hard today's children will have to work to pay off
the country's mounting deficit. That's a vital message that might get lost in a
year of campaign rhetoric, and it deserves a response from the White House in
its own 30 seconds of imagery.
Luckily,
there are still some networks that do allow the free exchange of ideas. Please
join the one-minute boycott: at Super Bowl halftime, switch to CNN and watch
"Child's Pay," and let us know at:
http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/boycott/?id=2294-3696329-4mzBAaCACOJxL8iRwyFk7A
Thanks
for all you do,
--Adam, Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Laura, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn.org Team
P.S.
Here's the L.A. Times' Op-Ed piece, which ran in today's paper:
One Thing That Won't Be Tackled on Sunday: Issues
By Eli Pariser
Campaigns Director, MoveOn.org Voter Fund
http://www.moveon.org/r?484
When
the Super Bowl is beamed into living rooms around the world Sunday, you can
expect to see TV spots hyping cars, beer, razor blades, three different
erectile dysfunction cures, toilet paper and snack foods.
The
ads will be slick and clever, lavishly produced, brilliant in their marketing.
Some, no doubt, will be sexually suggestive or violent. Most will cost $2
million to $3 million to produce and broadcast.
But
here's what you won't see: a single ad about the big issues that face our
country today.
Outrageous
as it may sound, CBS has decided that ads selling erectile dysfunction
medicines and toilet paper are appropriate for Americans, but serious
discussion should be banned. An ad about our country, our war, our president,
the state of our schools or the size of our budget deficit? That, in the eyes
of CBS officialdom, would be too controversial.
We
know, because we tried. We thought that the Super Bowl, with 130 million
viewers, would be a great place to get our message out. So we held a contest on
the Internet to select the best ad we could possibly run. The ad we selected
— from 1,500 submissions — shows children cleaning offices, washing
dishes and hauling trash. It ends with the question: "Guess who's going to
pay off President Bush's $1-trillion deficit?" (It's viewable at
http://www.MoveOn.org ).
But
even though we were willing to pony up the $1.6 million to pay for it, CBS
refused to sell us the time, citing what it says is a 50-year-old policy
prohibiting ads that take stands on controversial public policy issues.
CBS
claims its policy is designed to keep the Citibanks and Microsofts of the world
from buying time to tell Americans how to think. "It is designed to
prevent those with means to produce and purchase network advertising from having
undue influence on 'controversial issues of public importance,' " the
network said this week.
Sounds
fair, doesn't it? But what it really means is that if McDonald's buys an ad
promoting its tasty Big Mac, no one can run an ad that says Big Macs are full
of fat and unhealthful. Pfizer can run a spot saying it's "helping people
in need" get medicine, but we can't air an ad saying that Pfizer lobbied
to weaken the new Medicare bill to prop up drug prices. Halliburton has slick
ads that stress its role supporting the troops in
The
fewer issue ads run, the more time there is for ads with mud-wrestling women
selling beer and leggy models peddling fast cars. CBS execs think Americans love
mindless consumerism more than anything else and that it's their duty to pander
to this.
But
with "fairness" doctrines no longer governing the airwaves and the
media more concentrated each day, it's getting harder and harder to engage
regular people in political discourse. Even the town square has been replaced,
in most communities, by private malls, where politics is not encouraged.
Instead
of taking every opportunity to promote civic discussion, commercial
broadcasters like CBS shrink away. The airwaves are, more than ever, private
enterprises. And for that we pay a price: As public political speech becomes
more difficult and infrequent, the public becomes less engaged in the policies,
processes and laws that govern us.
"Controversy"
isn't the real problem. Network front offices love it when one group or another
protests sexy babes in bikinis peddling beer brands, or violent video games in
which the highest body count wins. That builds buzz.
The
CBS policy represents the triumph of corporate self-interest over the public
interest. This is the same CBS, after all, that yanked the Ronald Reagan
miniseries recently when Republican bigwigs complained. As Sen. Richard Durbin
(D-Ill.) noted this week, "These are the same executives at CBS who successfully
lobbied this Congress to change the FCC rules on TV station ownership to their
corporate advantage." CBS simply would rather not risk offending powerful
people in
But
try getting that issue into a 30-second spot for Super Bowl audiences.
Subscription Management
This is a message from MoveOn.org on behalf of the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. To
remove yourself (Andrea Shay) from this list, please visit our subscription
management page at:
http://moveon.org/s?i=2294-3696329-4mzBAaCACOJxL8iRwyFk7A