Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”
This is big. According to the radio-industry website Radio-Info.com, which first posted excerpts of the Premiere memo, among the 98 companies that have decided to no longer sponsor these programs are “carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm), and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway).” Together, these talk-radio advertising staples represent millions of dollars in revenue.
I think there was a sense before that whatever was said on talk radio was fine--but now it's hurting business. I have to disagree with Bill Maher regarding his defense of Limbaugh: Limbaugh didn't offer an actual apology because he barely acknowledged what he'd said, but also, sometimes it is right for an "entertainer" to lose business. It happens all the time even in cases where it isn't about censoring or censuring them over offensive remarks--actors can find it hard to get roles after having temporary fame, musicians can see their record sales go down. It's a part of the circle of life. Limbaugh's supposed ratings were always a little murky and his act was always fairly offensive to far more people than actually regularly listened (at times I wondered how many listened with "megadittos" in mind, versus how many listened simply because they were waiting for a, well, fluke of the tongue, where Limbaugh would cross an uncrossable line). This time, perhaps he has. At any rate, he's not owed a sinecure. (In radio? For crying out loud, who is in radio?)
But more than that, the value of his particular brand of commentary, with its hyperbolic style and lack of reliable information content (consider, for one thing, his bashing of Obama over sending advisers to Uganda to respond to the murderousness of....The Lord's Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony) needs to be reconsidered. Maybe the time has come to at least hold these talkers to a higher standard--I'm not saying that they can't be opinionated or even boldly opinionated, but misogynistic, racist, hate-filled, and dead wrong speech just isn't that valuable. People who want to spread it can start crappy little blogs or go be trolls on someone else's blog--they don't have to be rewarded with radio contracts, any more than they need to have tv shows or be ESPN commentators.
At the same time, I don't like the false equivalence put up that Maher, or Olbermann, or Ed Schultz, or Michael Freaking Moore, are held to different standards by everyone on the left--no, feminists, for example, have absolutely got massive reservations about them being reliable allies due to past boorish comments. But there's a difference between being a poor ally, or a "potty-mouth", and being an actual avowed foe. Limbaugh's shtick involves calling someone like me a Nazi and stripping women of rights, dignity and respect. Our Lefty clods might call names at individual bad-actors, but I don't think they actually hate women. They're just occasionally clueless; they don't make a job of it. I think we can reasonably tell the difference.
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