Check out this proclamation yesterday:
Led by Media Matters for America and supported by MoveOn, MediaChannel.org, Free Press, Working Assets, Robert Greenwald (Director, Outfoxed), AlterNet, and The Campaign for America’s Future, we have launched a campaign to protest Sinclair Broadcast Group’s continued misuse of public airwaves to air one-sided politically charged programming without a counterpoint.
SinclairAction.com is pleased to announce that Staples, Inc., the world’s leading seller of office products, has not renewed advertising on all local Sinclair Broadcasting stations nationwide. Staples, Inc. attributed its decision in part to the response the company received from customers visiting the SinclairAction.com website.
To clarify that Staples does not have a policy against advertising on Sinclair Broadcast Group news, Staples has the following statement:
Our media buying process with Sinclair Broadcast Group stations has recently been misrepresented by an organization with no affiliation to Staples. Staples regularly drops and adds specific programs from our media buying schedule, as we evaluate and adjust how to best reach our customers. We do not let political agendas drive our media buying decisions.
Staples does not support any political party. We advertise with a variety of media outlets, but do not necessarily share the same views of these organizations or what they report. As we have done for a number of years, Staples will continue to advertise on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations.
David Brock and the Media Matters whores misrepresenting reality? Say it ain’t so, Joe. Liars and idiots.
Jay
This is great.
B. Minich, PI
Nice one. Notice, too, that the Sinclair action website has STILL NOT CHANGED THEIR FRONT PAGE, despite the change in Staples position. They don’t want to look like they lost, the better to entice more businesses – they still want to be able to say, “Staples is doing it, you should too!”
Dave
I’m wondering just who exactly is lying. Apparently Staple saw, read and approved the Media Matters press release before it was issued. Staples spokespeople on several occassions (January 5 and 6) told reporters from the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and Baltimore Sun that in its decision to drop Sinclair Staples considered (among other factors) the “concerns expressed by our customers” and that “e-mail complaints in part caused it to stop advertising on Sinclair’s local programs”. But now they belatedly issue a denial that they dropped Sinclair due to public pressure concerns at all. Sounds fishy to me. Tell me again – who’s the likely liar in this picture?
jeff
“Who’s the likely liar in this picture?”
Uh, probably the organization that is run by a habitual liar like David Brock.
RW
Gee, Dave, is there sort of background should David Brock could have that would make him LESS likely to lie that the actual history we have to go by?
That he’s the chief of the office speaks volumes about the underlings who can’t outrank him, but that’s a topic for another day.
M. Scott Eiland
“Who’s the likely liar in this picture?”
*snicker*
Asking whether anyone else is more likely to have lied than David Brock is like seeing Mike Tyson standing next to someone who has just had their ear bitten off and asking, “Now, is there anyone more likely than Mike to have bitten that guy’s ear off?”
jeff
Looks to me as if Staples has pulled their ads from Sinclair PROGRAMMING, but not from the stations themselves.
MMFA, doing the responsible thing, has clarified their statement (which was apparently inadequately vetted by Staples). Seems pretty clear and proper to me.
Dave
All the answers to my question have been witty non sequiturs to the question – if Staples approved the press release, told the media that they pulled the ads (in part at least) because of customer pressure, but now say they didn’t didn’t do that while Media Matters reported that they did (pull the ads due to such pressure) – who’s lying? Or is taking a look at the facts before jumping to a conclusion too much to ask?
Quaker in a Basement
“Or is taking a look at the facts before jumping to a conclusion too much to ask?”
Well, taking a cue from some of the commenters above, let’s consider the past history of the people you’re talking about.
Apparently that is too much to ask.
Hamilton Lovecraft
Come on, Dave, facts are so inconvenient when you’re getting your froth on.
HH
Staples is not pulling their ads from news programming or any other programming on Sinclair, and may spend more. Media Matters said otherwise. End of story.
RW
Or is taking a look at the facts before jumping to a conclusion too much to ask?
Okay. The company issued a press release stating that the MM report (let’s be honest that was the group) was wrong.
On the other hand, you have a group of liars led by a chief liar who said something otherwise.
Bloggerhead
So, let me get this straight. Brock is such a liar that the word of a corporation–pandering self-interest personified–is to be taken over his, outright and any indications to the contrary be damned? And how do we arrive at this? On account of his own contrition in admitting that he had lied for years in the pay of the conservative wurlitzer. Sure, it’s confusing: telling the truth about your lying makes anything you say suspect, I guess. One thing’s for certain, though, his smears of Anita Hill pass for gospel on wingjob comments board everywhere, and may be widely revisited quite soon. Oh, wait, she’s a liar in her own right, ain’t she? Not because of anything Brock wrote, but because you wingers say so. As the say, good enough for government work, well, this particular government anyway.
SPQR
How about ’cause Caruso caught them changing their website to bolster their coverup?
Staples? Nope, MM.
Ricky
Yes, I know bloggerhead, no matter what Brock did or does, “wingers” are worse. Second verse same as the first.
Tell me something that I can’t find the 13 year olds posting on kos or eschaton.
Ricky
In summation: One can never know who is telling the truth in a “he said/he said” situation. All you can go on is credibility. Apparently, some feel it wrong to even mention Brock and his group’s obvious lack of credibility.
Fine. I guess. IMO, that only hurts the creidibility of THOSE PEOPLE.
For all I know, Sinclair is lying, but if I have to choose between someone telling me THEIR POSITION and someone with a history of dishonesty telling me what that other person’s position is, I’ll go with the person telling me what their position is.
Then again, I may be jaded since I’ve had a Brock employee fabricate my position in the past & so I’m not surprised at the notion that it would happen to someone else or a company.
M. Scott Eiland
I concluded that Anita Hill was a liar long before I ever heard of David Brock, based on holes in her story that you could pilot an ocean liner through. As for Brock, he’s a self-admitted liar of epic proportions–no need to speculate there.
Ricky
As we all know, Hill was telling the truth, while Broadderick, Jones, Browning, Willey, etc., were liars.
I know because I actually had a Brock underling tell me they were.
That’s what water carriers do.