Sunday, January 07, 2007
I Smell A Mouse
This story really needs to get everywhere. Long story short:
-KSFO San Francisco is a talk station that plays host to right-wing pundits such as Melanie Morgan and Lee Rogers, who regularly joke about murdering protesters, torture, assassinating political enemies, and, on one notable occasion, asked a caller to say that Allah was a "whore."
-Spocko, a SF-area blogger, compliles these statements (and oh, are there some ripe ones) and sends off the info to several national advertisers who have bought ads on KSFO. Visa promptly pulls all advertising from KSFO.
-ABC-- that's right, ABC; KSFO is owned by Disney-- presents Spocko with a cease-and-desist order.
So, a self-described "fifth-tier blogger" managed to do what Keith Olbermann himself couldn't-- scare advertisers away from people spewing some of the most hateful bullshit on air (seriously, you have Melanie Morgan and Ann Coulter joking about how exactly they're going to execute liberals)-- and Disney itself responds by ordering to stop under pain of lawsuit. I guess they figured that if they could get away with it for day care centers, then stifling freedom of speech was just the next step forward.
Of course, you can make a difference. My second bullet point contains all the clips that Spocko compiled from KSFO. Link to them on your blog, and get in contact with the advertisers. After all, the cease-and-desist only applies to Socko, not to other bloggers. At least, not yet.
-KSFO San Francisco is a talk station that plays host to right-wing pundits such as Melanie Morgan and Lee Rogers, who regularly joke about murdering protesters, torture, assassinating political enemies, and, on one notable occasion, asked a caller to say that Allah was a "whore."
-Spocko, a SF-area blogger, compliles these statements (and oh, are there some ripe ones) and sends off the info to several national advertisers who have bought ads on KSFO. Visa promptly pulls all advertising from KSFO.
-ABC-- that's right, ABC; KSFO is owned by Disney-- presents Spocko with a cease-and-desist order.
So, a self-described "fifth-tier blogger" managed to do what Keith Olbermann himself couldn't-- scare advertisers away from people spewing some of the most hateful bullshit on air (seriously, you have Melanie Morgan and Ann Coulter joking about how exactly they're going to execute liberals)-- and Disney itself responds by ordering to stop under pain of lawsuit. I guess they figured that if they could get away with it for day care centers, then stifling freedom of speech was just the next step forward.
Of course, you can make a difference. My second bullet point contains all the clips that Spocko compiled from KSFO. Link to them on your blog, and get in contact with the advertisers. After all, the cease-and-desist only applies to Socko, not to other bloggers. At least, not yet.
