BuzzFlash Reader Contribution

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Progressive Issue Ad Update

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Robert Millman

BuzzFlash readers may be familiar with my recent fight to air progressive issue ads on a Clear Channel-owned radio station, News Talk 810 WGY, which broadcasts from Albany, New York. Thanks to BuzzFlash, some newspaper articles [BF: here and here] and letters from regular people, this became too embarrassing for Clear Channel and they were forced to air the ads.

The result: Seven progressive issue ads were heard by the listeners of WGY, an AM station that carries Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. (I am particularly happy that the Christianity Spot played during the Rush Limbaugh program on Tuesday, January 18 at 11:50 a.m. Rush's Albany listeners got to hear in plain language -- "leave Christ out of it alright? He never supported a war.")

Prior to their airing, the controversy these ads caused was covered in Albany area newspapers including Metroland Magazine, the Albany Times Union, and the Schenectady Daily Gazette. It was featured on Albany public radio -- WAMC's syndicated program, "The Media Project" -- and on "Behind the Sound Bite," a national and world affairs program produced (and Web-streamed) by WERU, a community radio station broadcasting from Bangor and Blue Hill, Maine. And a PBS producer is expressing interest in this story for Now.

I tell you all this because anyone can do what I have done. I desperately hope that a few dozen people around the country will try to place these ads on right-wing radio stations throughout the nation. Dare to dream.

Make no mistake, it does matter and it does make a difference if us regular folk are willing to stand up and say "enough is enough." Borrowing is not saving, they’re different. Our oil dependence does affect our foreign policy. Vote suppression is a crime, not a tactic. Partisan redistricting is vote theft. Dissent is patriotic. Iraq is a mess. Christ never supported war.

These are not radical ideas, they are just simple truths. And right-wing radio stations are terrified at the idea of having these things said out loud, to their audience.

Already, in Florida, Frank Howard is planning to run a series of these issue ads on WFLA, a big conservative Clear Channel radio station in Tampa that plays right wing programming all day long. And he may need your help to get them on the air.

So, if you feel it is worthwhile to make talk radio air the truth, please stand and fight. Place an ad, any one you like, just once on a talk radio program. All of the ads I created are available for full and free use by anyone. And they have already played on a right-wing radio station.

A lot of you may feel that buying advertising time on right-wing radio is counter-intuitive, because your money will help support those stations. Each of you has to make that decision, but keep in mind that advertising is an available tool, and airing issue ads on talk radio brings the fight to the heart of the radical right.

And you’ll be using a tool that constructs a central pillar of the Bush ideology -- Free Enterprise. For a change, progressives are in a win-win situation. Your money is as good as anyone’s. If free enterprise is free, then conservative radio stations have to accept your money and your issue ads. They can, and might, refuse to acknowledge that your ads exist, or give a reason why they won’t accept your money. But the more they balk at running these issue ads the more it becomes news. And as I found out, being on the news is free air time.

So, if you are willing to challenge the radical right with these simple issue ads, conservative ideology is on your side. If conservative radio stations accept the ads, your voice will be heard on that bastion of the right. If they deny the ads, they are hypocrites and it becomes news.

The half truths that pass for discourse must be challenged, and I firmly believe that airing issue ads right now could make a difference, could drastically change public opinion. I know it is only a fable, but it took just one child to declare "The Emperor has no clothes," and the vain king ran from sight to hide in his castle.

I want to be proud of my country, I want my children to have a future, I'm taking my flag back.

For more information see my "How-to Guide" for placing issue ads on right-wing radio, or write me at ads@buzzflash.com.

Stand, Fight and Win,
Robert Millman
ads@buzzflash.com

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION