"Our advertising campaigns have one simple objective to communicate with
audiences in the most effective way possible. The Company is receptive to many
forms and styles of media as we seek a balanced representation of programming to
reach our customer base. Unfortunately campaigns like this one cause us to take
time away from our sustainability goals and address a variance of political
views. "
I have real fears that this battle between Bill O'Reilly and DailyKos could cause some real damage to the environment of political thought and discussion in this country. I don't think that we want to live in a country where companies only support the ideas that they agree with, and people only support the companies that support the ideas that they agree with. The first thing that would happen is that a lot of companies will drop out of the market all together, those are the companies that have moderate voices and don't want to support the extreme rhetoric from either side. When they leave the market, it will mean that there will be less of a need for programmers to apply to moderate voices. Those ad spaces and dollars will have to be replaced by someone, and if that means that the edges of the spectrum are giving more money to hear what they want to hear, programmers will be under more pressure to tell them what they want to hear.
One of the strengths of America is our market system, where it isn't the ideas of the company that made your products that are important, but the quality and the price of those products. The market should not see colour or religion, and it should not see political leanings either. While I do not have blind faith in the market, I think it is true that when these basic ideas are changed, it weakens the system, which could very well weaken our country.
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