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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

October Surprise

The vaunted "October Surprise" turned out as none other than the porcine Karl Rove.

Otherwise, the day's events happened to contain a bunch of interesting media twists.On the last item, I sent in a question to one of the companies allegedly involved in the advertising blackout, REI co-op. An outdoors store known for their liberal causes, I figured that they would give us the real scoop about the "REI Sporting Goods (sic)" involvement with ABC. They returned my query with a form letter within minutes of me sending it.
"Thank you for contacting REI regarding the Air America advertising blackout.

Today, an internal memo on ABC Network letterhead was posted on the Air America website and picked up by various blog sites. The memo lists companies that refused to have their radio advertising supporting Air America and Al Franken?s programming. REI was listed as one of the companies declining to advertise; however this information is incorrect.

REI has not refused to advertise during Air America?s programming. In fact, REI has placed radio ads on stations carrying Air America programming.

It is unfortunate that this misinformation has been widely distributed. We are currently working with our advertising agency and the ABC radio network to track down how this happened.

You are a valued member and I hope you will give us another opportunity to serve your future outdoor needs.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Carolyn
REI Online Customer Service"

customer-service@rei.com
In the meantime, erstwhile Air America host Marc Maron and second banana Jim Earl made a triumphant return to the AAR airwaves and guest hosted the Springer show last week, hijacking the first hour with talk about energy efficient transportation alternatives [listen here]. The rumor mill has it that Maron may join fellow AAR outcast Mike Malloy on the NovaM radio network, and may also go over to Sirius satellite radio. Malloy had a great rant on how Bush has gone from his self-proclaimed role of King of America to King of the World, but eventually a caller had to correct this title and extend it to King of the Universe with the new Bush space policy.

Update: I sent the REI memo to Mike Malloy for an appraisal. Nothing gets past him as he replied succintly:
" In fact, REI has placed radio ads on stations carrying Air America programming."
Weasel words, as always. No one said these advertisers wouldn't advertise on STATIONS that carried Air America programming. The charge is they refused to be on Air America PROGRAMS.

Bastards.

MM

3 Comments:

Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the heads-up about Maron & Earl. I still wake up thinking Morning Sedition'll be on, and that show got canned a friggin' year ago.

10:13 AM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

Yer right, that was almost a year ago. I have to say that was the all time greatest radio show. Maron got to play the opening theme song last week and it gave me the warm fuzzies and chills at the same time.

6:27 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

Come on, Mike Malloy... I mean, the memo explicitly states that REI has *not* asked not to have its ads air *during* Air America programming, and *in addition* they say they've placed ads on radio stations that have Air America programming on it. I mean, it's fine to have an eagle eye, but let's not tear down our allies along with our real enemies. BuyBlue.org shows that REI made 100% of its (rather modest) political contributions to Democrats. Their customers are overwhelmingly left of center, many are way left of center. They started in Seattle. Their employees are, similarly, left of center.

I am a longtime REI member and I've shopped in many REI stores all up and down the West Coast and it's ridiculous to imagine that they would alienate their own customer base in the way claimed in the memo.

2:01 PM  

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