{"id":7044,"date":"2006-04-04T10:45:15","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T14:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7044"},"modified":"2006-04-04T10:45:15","modified_gmt":"2006-04-04T14:45:15","slug":"moveonorg-has-trouble-reaching-the-airwaves-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/moveonorg-has-trouble-reaching-the-airwaves-again\/","title":{"rendered":"MoveOn.org has trouble reaching the airwaves, again"},"content":{"rendered":"

MoveOn.org political action committee unveiled a hard-hitting new ad campaign<\/a> this week, called “Red-Handed.” It specifically takes aim at four vulnerable GOP House incumbents — Reps. Nancy Johnson (Conn.), Deborah Pryce (Ohio), Chris Chocola (Ind.) and Thelma Drake (Va.) — and accuses them of selling out<\/a> to energy interests.<\/p>\n

Against ominous background music, a narrator intones, “Instead of protecting us, [name of member] has been caught red-handed, protecting oil-company profits while we pay more at the pump.”<\/p>\n

For Johnson, the ad states, “She accepted more than a quarter-million dollars from energy companies, and she voted against bills that would have penalized those companies for price gouging.” […] “Tom DeLay. Dick Cheney. Jack Abramoff. And now, [name of member]. Another Republican caught red-handed,” the ad says as the lawmaker’s hand is illustrated turning red.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MoveOn’s PAC budgeted $1.3 million to buy time on 33 network affiliates in the lawmakers’ home markets, except two NBC-owned affiliates have rejected the ads.<\/p>\n

“We expected Republicans to respond, but we didn’t expect two local NBC stations owned by GE to refuse to run our ad,” the MoveOn PAC said in a written statement yesterday. […] The PAC insinuated that the refusal to carry the ads was politically motivated: “This smells of NBC pursuing its own political agenda at the expense of free speech and balance.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Neither NBC nor the affiliates have explained exactly why the ads were rejected, but reportedly there were concerns about MoveOn’s accuracy. It’s a pretty weak excuse; there are some subjective questions in the ad, but nothing false.<\/p>\n

On a related note, it’s frustrating to see just how often ads with a progressive message are kept off the air.<\/p>\n

Last week, for example, all of the major TV networks rejected an ad<\/a> by the United Church of Christ that told viewers, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” In November, Fox News wouldn’t run anti-Alito ads<\/a>. Also last year, MoveOn.org raised enough money to buy an ad during the Super Bowl, but CBS rejected it<\/a>, 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 UCC because the church’s open, tolerant message of inclusion was labeled “too controversial<\/a>.” Last summer, a Utah television station (owned by Clear Channel) refused to air<\/a> an anti-war ad featuring Cindy Sheehan.<\/p>\n

I guess gaining access to the “public’s airwaves” can be challenging sometimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MoveOn.org political action committee unveiled a hard-hitting new ad campaign this week, called “Red-Handed.” It specifically takes aim at four vulnerable GOP House incumbents — Reps. Nancy Johnson (Conn.), Deborah Pryce (Ohio), Chris Chocola (Ind.) and Thelma Drake (Va.) — and accuses them of selling out to energy interests. Against ominous background music, a narrator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}