Online Blogintegrity

Amigos,

thees weel probably be the last guest post from Spocko, as hees new server weel be going up pretty soon.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to host hees guest posts here, and hope hees new blog enrages el Raton even more.

Spocko ees always welcome to guest post at OBI.


!EGN!

Hi everyone. I'm working on

1. updating the advertiser database
2. reloading my blog on a host with balls and
3. Setting up Spocko's United Reserves Against Killing Journalists and Liberals Legal Defence Fund (Thanks to Interrobang's insistence)
4. sending background materials to the SF Chronicle and the SF Weekly.


Oh, and everyone say hi to a few folks: Bob P, Zeno and Jim Madison. All folks who wrote early letters to advertisers.


* Bob P got the Visa response to my Nov 15 series of letters, Operating in the dark in a powerless Oregonian night he still sent letters and they got better and better with each version.
* Zeno is our Sacramento connection to folks in the teaching world (who strangely are not responding to his request to pull their ads. Maybe it is time to point out their reluctance...)
* Athenae you all know, her inspiration lights all our hearts up.
* Eli, who played devils advocate on my letter and kept me company while I was being a boring poster and writng letters. (He is Not shadowy or Mysterious though)
* Kelley B, whose brain works like mine only MUCH smarter and more scientific, you can bask in all my reflected glory, like you asked, just for being one of my 15 regulare regular reader!
* Interrobang. Brilliant, technical, writer, Canandian, what's not to love? Long conversations via emails keep me sane, deserves crazy credit for keeping this going.
* GradeSchoolTech, whom I love like a sister and whose sons I endeavor to provide a good example to so they will visit me in the old Vulcan's home. You were always there. Thank you 50 times over.
* AND Jim Madison (PTcruiser) WHO is the ENGINE that kept chugging at the advertisers when even I was scared shitless. He truly deserves the lions share of the Sussman losing advertisers credit , and if it wasn't for the fact that I have tried to protect him from the thugs at KSFO/ABC/Disney he would be much more prominent in this story. He doesn't even know my real name, yet he kept on this story. If I ever make any money out of this deal (vs. losing all my money!) I'm going to buy him multiple bottles of Romulan Ale.


And Vulcan salutes of course to Mike Stark the finest Wingnut talker fighter in the whole blogosphere who put me up at DKos to the bigs.

Updated post eh? Let's think tactical AND strategic.

What keeps this up or propels it to the next news cycle?

One will be to list successes. Blogger v. Hate Radio. Headline:"Polite bloggers One, Hate Radio Zero" (God I suck at those).
I'll never top my Dixie Chicks headline about them losing red state fans, "Hix Nix Cix. Dix."

Prep for morning show assault:
And the Monday show AM on KSFO? They will be back pedaling like a crazy, apologizing, denying, lying. They always have the stage. They have the volume button and a broadcast license to give their side for 4 hours.

Their defenses need to be prepared for and countered. Mike, chime in please between contract law and tort reform if you have a sec.
It's Time to DEPosition and prep for the counter attack. Based on what they do, Morgan will play victim, dismiss us as dirty bloggers and "that moveon.org crowd." (FYI I emailed with a Moveon person, I'm requesting technical resources if necessary and if Disney/KSFO actually pulls some other legal trick.)

Lee Rogers will go all tough guy: "Nobody tells me what to say and If you Don't like it, Change the Channel! And then he will talk about how Air America was a failure and how We were going this route because AAR was not successful with their talk radio."


Messages and Narrative

My friend Dave and I role played my interview and he thinks that the
"Why this action, why Now" part of the story is interesting.Athenae? (This blogging stuff isn't just entertainment and carping, this can be a tool to battle bullies. ABC and Disney are fine when it is just entertainment and ratings, but when it costs THEM money it's BRINGS OUT THE LAWYERS to keep the cash flowing.)

What I think still sticks in my craw it the way that journalists can't, don't or won't defend themselves. The FRAKKING Wall Street Journal sponsors this show. Not the editorial page, but the rest of the Journal has some fine writers and they never said BOO to my letter! (I spent 15 hours on that sucker! You do a Google search for WSJ and Nancy Abramson and Spocko's Brain is #1. Did they care? No. Call for Reporter Glenn Simpson to be hanged. Great. Free Speech is swell, but you don't have to pay money to Morgan for the privilege of telling your reporters to hang.

And how in KSFO land controversy usually DOESN'T lead to anyone getting into "trouble". The Chronicle reporter said that a controversial story just ends up bouncing back and forth with O'Rielly, or Morgan or Savage, just leads to "Train wreck looky loo" ratings for them. They WIN with controversy up until it reaches a point where someone loses a job, a advertiser or a journalist or Muslim loses his life.

So the end game here is to make the controversy work in OUR favor. People writing the advertisers will work, until, like the Borg they will adapt. So the goal here is to NOT let them apologize their way out of this. The world needs to know that the money they generate via hate speech Is ILL GOTTEN gains. Cash generated by hate speech and violent rhetoric is tainted, just like your product Mr. Advertiser..

ONE PROBLEM,

With asynchronous Talk Radio we are all playing on THEIR turf and in their space. And since we are ALL huge free speech advocates here it's hard for us to effectively say to RADIO bullies, "Hey, that's not cool, cut it out."

They asked me if I wanted to "debate" Sussman. I said no, taking on Jon Stewart's tone to Tucker Carlson I said, "I won't be your monkey." and "You are hurting the country." I'm no Mike Stark, but I also knew that the second I was off the air they would mock me and dismiss my point. It is never about "changing someone's mind" on Hot Talk radio, so I moved the battle to another venue.

Bottom line: Right now It is SAFE for advertisers to be on violent AM hate radio. That needs to change. There are NO consequences to the HOST (The Union protects them from the new FEC fines, good for the Unions!), there are no consequences to the station: This needs to change. The Christian Right has been doing this to radio for years. John A at Americablog used the same tactics FOR the gay community against companies like Ford. His work was also an inspiration. Behavior can change.

Hate Radio does better with "controversial topics" and they get better ratings, which leads to higher ad rates. They hide behind "free speech!" like the bullies they are.
I think that Hannity and Rush are more subtle and frankly more dangerous, and Media Matters, Al Franken and others have been dealing with the dangerous the present, but third and second tier hosts are more apt to slip up and therefore when their hatred, racial bias or violence toward others come out we can shine the light on them to their advertisers who DO care about what they say.

I've learned a lot in this fight and one thing that we can do is help replicate this for our causes. I haven't told many of you about the DEEP PR anti smear work I did against Melanie Morgan to protect Jimmy Carter from her "Censure Carter" campaign in Atlanta, but that is a story for another boring blog post.

LLAP,
Spocko

Update: Go and read Mike Stark's new dKos Diary. Stark ees a dangerously creative and resourceful hombre, and he has many good suggestions on what joo can do to help Spocko, and give el Raton the feenger.