ABC Blocks Ad Focusing on Renewable Energy Needs
by Jaymi Heimbuch, Central Coast, California on 10.10.08
It's always frightening when a major advocate for clean energy gets blocked by mainstream media.
ABC has blocked this ad by the We Can Solve It campaign, an ad that divulges true facts about the oil industry and our ability to switch to renewable energy - facts that of course have political implications, as do most things tied to oil.
Keep reading for details and a quick way you can help out with this situation.
As EcoGeek put it:
It is absolutely true that America's oil and coal lobbies have consistently blocked legislation and mis-represented facts about global warming to the American people. The travesty was when the oil lobby aired the "carbon is life" advertisement, not when the We Can Solve It campaign tried to set the record straight.
We never like seeing problems like this where possible solutions for change are blocked to the American public. It's about more than just polar bears. If you'd like to do something about it, you can sign the petition at We Can Solve It's website to help get ABC to reconsider their decision and air the ad.
As we quickly approach an election day with many environmental issues on the ballots, it's important that voters get all sides of every story, and this is one of them.
Full Disclosure: We Can Change It is an advertiser with TreeHugger.
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Big Oil and Other Interest Groups Join McCain VP Palin's Lawsuit to Reverse Polar Bear Listing
Big Oil Economics: The Greatest Welfare Scam Ever!
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I've always distrusted Pat Robertson, who said that liberal judges were worse than the September 11 hijackers. He did an advert for this outfit, with Al Sharpton, another leading light of extremism.
I don't doubt that this outfit would either screw-up their reading of the network's pre-set broadcast standards. I'm totally behind abc on this.
Truth can not be hide from world, .....
When problem surface more and more, every one will have to accept the truth ...
Oil companies are in the business of content management with media organizations. You see commercials for things like Dow chemical and BP and what not. But these aren't typically advertisements directed at getting consumers to buy their product. They're more there to stake some kind of claim in what media organizations choose to report on -- and in this case which commercials they show. The oil companies are most likely a much larger contributor to ABC's bottom line than We Can Solve It. So if they get some kind of message from Exxon or BP saying "don't show that ad or we'll pull our support," well you can understand why the ad was pulled. It's certainly not in our best interests, but "news" media hasn't been in the business of being on our side in quite a while.
I've given up on the mainstream corporate media. The internet, in general, is a much more reliable source of information. The internet provides news on demand, while ABC and Fox and CNN and whoever gets to pick which news the deem worthy for me to know about. It's crap.
Game on! I happen to know that nearly 100% of televisions can be programmed to ignore certain stations. It occurs to me that the appropriate step to take here is to strike back directly at ABC. Imagine if 1,000,000 of us configured our TVs to block ABC for perhaps 1 month. Would that not hit ABC right where it hurts most? Personally I watch TV about 60 minutes a week, and never ABC. I will do this today. Who is with me?
John, Unless you have one of the Nielsen rating boxes on your tv... how are ABC and advertisers going to know that you are not watching?
Of course one way would be to stir up a big mess on the internet, sign every post and e-mail with "Not watching ABC till they do the right thing and play this ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmEUHeI7fzE" or some such....
But personally I think the ad is going to get bigger due to the contraversy then if they have just taken the money and run it. Saves money for We Can Solve It as well.
Win-Win
Why did ABC block this ad?