Earlier this month Media Matters launched its most ferocious boycott effort ever to force Rush Limbaugh off the air by intimidating advertisers.
It always was a charade, as many have documented. Media Matters coordinatedwith “independent” groups to make it appear that there was a grassroots movement, but it was astroturf. And anybody who actually looked into to it, you know, things journalists used to do, knew it. So tell me, how does an apolitical nonprofit group do things like this? Where is the IRS, oh sorry, should have known. This is only illegal for Conservative nonprofits to do.
The numbers of advertisers “dropping” Limbaugh as published by Media Matters were grossly inflated, as the stats included advertisers who never advertised or never intended to advertise. Relatively few high profile actual sponsors dropped the show.
But the mainstream media had you believe otherwise. But no more. Even The Washington Post reports that it is all but over:
Exactly one month after the conservative radio host sparked outrage by calling Georgetown law-school student Sandra Fluke “a slut” and “a prostitute” in a three-day diatribe, stations are standing by him, advertisers are trickling back to his program and the news media have moved on.
Liberal groups that organized petitions and boycotts against Limbaugh say that they intend to keep up the pressure and that they’ve had a lasting impact on the most popular radio host in America.
“The objective has been to show that there are real consequences when someone like Mr. Limbaugh or his company shows no accountability for his actions,” says Angelo Carusone, who has been leading the anti-Limbaugh efforts for Media Matters for America, a Washington organization. “That is continuing.”
At the same time, however, Carusone acknowledged that outrage is hard to sustain. “I think certainly the pressure has been reduced,” he said. “To a certain extent, that’s okay and acceptable. . . . Obviously, the intensity is gone, but the engagement remains high.”
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