Call to Arms!

In case you haven't already heard, Sinclair Broadcast Group is forcing its local affiliates to air an anti-Kerry movie in the days prior to the election. The reprehensible part is that they are planning to skirt FCC regulations by claiming that the paid political advertisement (c'mon, that's really what it is...) is "news" and thus not subject to the Equal Time Rule.

There are a variety of efforts underway to bring pressure against Sinclair and it advertisers. My personal belief is that direct appeals to Sinclair are likely to be ineffective as Sinclair is an avowed part of the eerie calliope that is the Right Wing Media Wurlitzer. So, I don't think they're going to give in to pressure. Unless it hits them where they live.

Furthermore, I do think their advertisers are susceptible to an effective boycott. And that's where you come in.

If you live in any of the areas listed below, please go here and find out what companies in your area are advertising on your local Sinclair station. Then, please take a moment to call a few of the advertisers and register your displeasure at Sinclair's blatent attempt to meddle with the election. Be tactful and polite, but let them know that you will have to give serious thought to shopping at an establishment that condones the efforts of a partisan media outlet to subvert the democratic process.

Please do this. Remember, if the advertisers don't know you're boycotting them then they don't know you're boycotting them.

I know I don't have a huge readership. But I also know that people from the bolded locations below read this blog at least ocassionally. Please go here take action.

Asheville
Baltimore
Birmingham
Bloomington
Cape Girardeau
Cedar Rapids
Champaign
Charleston
Cincinnati
Columbus
Dayton
Des Moines
Flint
Grand Island
Johnson City
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Lexington
Madison
Milwaukee
Minneapolis
Nashville
Norfolk
Oklahoma City
Pensacola
Pittsburgh
Portland
Raleigh
Richmond
Rochester
San Antonio
Springfield
St. Louis
Syracuse
Tallahassee
Tampa
West Sacramento

Update: Josh Marshall has this:

Another reader writes in the following ...

[I've removed the introduction to this letter where the reader describes a local TV market where he works. Suffice it to say that he works in local TV and says he has friends who work at some of the Sinclair affiliates in question.]

Let me tell you, they're NOT afraid in the least of the license challenges that Steve Soto has proposed. I mean, what's the point? If they air it, then fine, challenge away, I'm all for taking revenge on them. But the goal should be to shut down the broadcast before it happens.
What they're deathly afraid of is the stink of this thing will somehow waft over to their advertisers. That's of course why they're not selling local ad time for this show. Having worked in the ad department of Sinclair's competitor, I know that local Sinclair stations make over 60% of their ad revenue from their nightly 6pm newscast. That's their bread and butter. You make a concerted effort to go after their top advertisers on the 5pm/6pm news hour and you'll have the executives spiking this show so fast it'll be amazing.