This is right: Hullabaloo: Gentleman’s Agreement. That’s the “what he said” part of this post.
Isn’t it odd that major corporations foster so much hatred on the air? It’s clear that Limbaugh and the Fox types are not joking. They are not even “joking”.
So it’s nice to see someone doing something to strike back. I suspect that Chris Matthews would not have been my top choice, or probably even one of my top three, for an advertiser boycott, but you start where you are. And where we are right now is An Open Letter to Chris Matthews.
So here’s what I did. I wrote emails to Intuit and to Toyota because I’m a long-time buyer of their products. And I also used the comment form on their web site. And I said that, much as I like their products, I wouldn’t buy again until they disassociate themselves from this filth. For Toyota it’s a car. For Intuit it was TurboTax: I said I would switch to Tax Cut (I didn’t say I would drop Quicken, because the truth is I probably wouldn’t).
That was last night. This morning I got a phone call from a very concerned marketing VP at Intuit. That’s the company that doesn’t do tech support and never answers my email about bugs in Quicken. She just saw my email and she want me to know that Intuit is very concerned about my opinion, that this is the first she’s heard of this and of course they are concerned. She’s put in a call to the marketing people, but of course Intuit has no control over what shows its ads run on.
I suggested to her that in fact networks make accommodations all the time if a sponsor doesn’t want to be on a show, and if her people were telling her different, maybe she should ask some questions.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking there were over 100,000 visits to the Open Letter site before I got there. I can’t really be the first person to actually write to Intuit, can I? (Although I used the web comment form as well as email, so who knows?). But never mind. I take her to mediamatters.org and to the An Open Letter to Chris Matthews site, and she professes amazement. I say that while Matthews has a First Amendment right to say what he likes, I am a Democrat, and I find it very offensive to have Democrats compared to terrorists. And if Intuit is paying for that with their ads, I think they are responsible for it and they’re associated with it, and I don’t want their product any more.
And so Ms. VP says she’ll call me back if the ad policy changes. I say I’d love it if they change the ad policy,and I look forward to hearing from her soon, and we part best of friends. Or something. And I’m not holding my breath, but who knows.
