A lot of people tonight are mad as hell at the right-wing bias in convention coverage, and you really don't have to take it any more. Some people here got after the AP today, and apparently got a story changed, but in the long run, writing letters to news organizations or networks isn't going to be especially effective.
Why? Because you are not their customer. You don't send a nickel to ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, or MSNBC. If you don't watch, it costs them nothing. Even if your not watching affects their ratings, no one knows why.
The people who do send them money are advertisers. It's the money that you spend buying advertisers' products that finances the So-Called Liberal Media (SCLM).
Here's how to fix it:
- Watch each network for one hour on one night.
- Record the program, time, date and advertiser for each ad (doesn't have to be news shows, or you can target those if you want)
- Find the mailing address or email address for each advertiser.
- Write each advertiser a short, sincere, polite letter or email explaining that you will not be buying their product as long as their advertising dollars are financing the biased right-wing media. Include the network, program, time and date of the ad. Give examples of bias if you like, but keep it short and to the point. Include your name, address or email adress and/or phone number.
- Be prepared to follow-through - don't buy advertisers' products if the networks don't change their behavior and the advertisers keep buying ads.
Now if one person does this, they may think he's really sick and they'll ignore him. If two people do it, they'll think it's a bad joke and they won't do anything. If three people do it, they might think it's an organization, and they might take notice. And if fifty people a day do it, they'll think it's a movement and the problem will be solved.
Somebody with web skills can set up a web site with advertisers, addresses, responses, etc and spread this around blogtopia (tm/skippy) and make a difference - any change is better than none. I already donate more time than I have to other projects, I'm pretty poor at web stuff, and I don't watch much network TV or any network news, so I'm offering this idea to anybody who thinks they can make it work.
I can't imagine any advertisers are going to think that reaching the small audiences of O'Reilly or Hardball or CNN will be worth the potential loss of sales something like this could create. The nightly news shows might take a little longer.