The most recent avalanche of earned media for the concept of civility undisputedly derives from multiple rants enunciated by Rush Limbaugh – who would have thunk, eh? The Moderate Voice’s own post, Talk Radio Bomb: 98 Advertisers Tell Premiere Networks to Avoid Shock Jocks, is testimony to this phenomenon.
The initial set of rants that triggered the avalanche targeted a 30 year old female law student who wanted to testify on Capitol Hill about why contraception should be covered by health care insurance. Suffice it to say that Limbaugh’s behavior in this instance has been deemed so uncivil by so broad a swath of Americans that advertisers as big as AOL, LegalZoom, ProFlowers and my own Cleveland’s Quicken Loans no longer support the show. And of course, coverage of people with the money, standing up to say that they don’t want their money supporting someone who expresses thoughts the way Limbaugh does, is another boost to the idea that we do value civility.
But wait! There’s more on how Rushbo is helping the civility cause. Read it at my Civic Commons blog post.