The last several months haven’t been great for progressive voices seeking paid air time on TV. In January, MoveOn.org raised enough money to buy an ad during the Super Bowl, but CBS rejected it, noting its “long-term policy not to air issue ads anywhere on the network.” Just a few weeks prior, CBS and NBC refused advertising from the United Church of Christ because the church’s open, tolerant message of inclusion was labeled “too controversial.”
And now we have a local example, which is just as odd.
A Utah television station is refusing to air an anti-war ad featuring Cindy Sheehan, whose son’s death in Iraq prompted a vigil outside President Bush’s Texas ranch.
The ad began airing on other area stations Saturday, two days before Bush was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
However, a national sales representative for KTVX, a local ABC affiliate, rejected the ad in an e-mail to media buyers, writing that it was an “inappropriate commercial advertisement for Salt Lake City.”
The statement was quite literal. The argument isn’t that the ad is libelous or that the station has a policy against political messages, but rather that KTVX doesn’t think it’s appropriate “for Salt Lake City.”
In a statement Saturday evening explaining its decision, KTVX said that after viewing the ad, local managers found the content “could very well be offensive to our community in Utah, which has contributed more than its fair share of fighting soldiers and suffered significant loss of life in this Iraq war.”
Even by conservative standards, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Utahans have died in Iraq, so viewers shouldn’t see an ad questioning the war? (On a side note, one wonders what the message must be for KTVX’s news team.)
What’s more, KTVX’s competitors didn’t seem to mind the ad at all. Salt Lake City affiliates of NBC, CBS, and Fox began running the ad Saturday.
You don’t suppose this has anything to do with the fact that KTVX is owned by Clear Channel Communications, which is the same corporation that hosted pro-war rallies in 2003, donated heavily to the Bush campaign, and put up billboards showing George W. Bush’s name and picture alongside the words “Our Leader,” do you?
Probably just a coincidence.