Useful Fools

According to The Washington Post, Staples has cravenly given in to a radical left movement to silence dissenting opinion. In doing so, they have also shown a dangerous lack of understanding of the blogosphere and the internet age. I would not want to be one of their stockholders.

My letter to them follows:

Dear Staples,

According to the Washington Post, you are dropping your ads from a conservative editorial program of Sinclair Broadcasting. Since this clearly results from a campaign organized by the radical MoveOn.Org among others, I can only conclude that your company is in agreement with the principles of that organization, principles rejected in November by the majority of Americans.

Having been to their website and watched the video they consider unacceptable, I have to wonder just what editorial views you would consider appropriate? While the clips gave the conservative viewpoint, they were factual and inoffensive.

Do you advertise in the New York Times? Their editorials are almost universally liberal (and often very offensive). Furthermore, their news coverage itself is frequently slanted, always to the left. Are your advertising principles anti-controversial, anti-conservative, or are you just cowards? Given what I have seen, I must conclude both of the latter.

You have lost a customer in myself, my family, and my company. I suspect that as word gets out, many others will likewise decide to spend their money at stores less willing to cave in to campaigns orchestrated to suppress dissent.

There are many choices in your market. I will now have to drive a mile farther to take advantage of them, rather than purchase at your store. Each time I do, I will be reminded of your poor judgment in siding with those who are against the very capitalism that allows you to thrive.

I would also suggest that you fire your advertising agency and hire one that understands the modern internet. Just as the internet led to a successful campaign against your advertisements, the word of your action will spread far and wide because of the nature of web logs (the “blogosphere”). Your stockholders are unlikely to be happy that you just cut your potential market in half.

From the Sinclair Action site [emphasis added]:

MoveOn.org, MediaChannel, Working Assets, Robert Greenwald (director of the film Outfoxed), Campaign for America’s Future, Free Press, and AlterNet — launched the SinclairAction.com site as part of a nationwide campaign to expose the conservative slant of Sinclair’s television news programming. The groups have focused their protest on Sinclair’s airing of “The Point,” a daily conservative news commentary read by Sinclair vice president Mark Hyman, while providing no opportunity for progressive counterpoints. The groups asked activists to contact advertisers on the 62 TV stations Sinclair owns or operates to enlist them in the campaign to get Sinclair to provide balance to “The Point.”

Here is a collection of excerpts they find so objectionable that they must be silenced, even though they are given in an editorial, not news, context.

Will the left now demand that Air America provide a balance to their announced “progressive” viewpoint? Not a chance. The left is happy to push its views through bias in their “news” reporting, entertainment products and opinion programming while fighting anyone else’s right to do so even in clearly stated opinion pieces.

Will Staples pull its ads from routinely left-of-center media?

Do pigs fly?

Do chickens have lips?