Earlier today we ran a post reporting that Staples reportedly had pulled its advertising from Sinclair Broadcasting. There’s also this link to Sinclair Action on Media Matters which is apparently what the wires used for their story.
But a just-received email from the National Center for Public Policy Research insists that isn’t so. Here’s their full release:
Office supply retailer Staples, Inc. is denying allegations made by a left-wing activist group that Staples is withdrawing advertising from news programs run by Sinclair Broadcasting as a result of the political content of the newscasts.
Staples Spokesman Paul Capelli told the National Center in a January 6 phone call that the organization Media Matters had "misrepresented" the facts about Staples’ advertising policy regarding Sinclair. Capelli referred to Staples as a "victim" of this misrepresentation, saying Staples is "nonpolitical."
In a January 4 press release, Media Matters had said: "Citing an effort to be responsive to customer concerns about Sinclair’s injection of partisan conservative politics into its nightly newscasts, Staples, Inc. attributed its decision [to cease advertising on Sinclair news January 10] in part to the response the company received from customers visiting the SinclairAction.com website."
Numerous mainstream news outlets ran stories saying Staples had decided to halt advertising on Sinclair news shows, and Internet websites such as the Drudge Report, blogs, and talk radio picked up the story. Some were highly critical of Staples, believing it had taken sides with the left against a broadcaster perceived as conservative.
Capelli, however, told The National Center that Staples stopped advertising on Sinclair news on January 10 because a previously scheduled ad campaign targeted to the Christmas season had ended. A new ad campaign, consisting of a different combination of ad buys, on a "back to work" theme had previously been scheduled to replace the ad campaign utilizing Sinclair news.
The Media Matters press release supplied this statement as its support of its report about Staples’ plans: "Staples, Inc. recently replied via email to consumers who registered concerns about Sinclair newscasts, stating: ‘As a result of Staples’ ongoing review of its advertising media buy activity, Staples will no longer be airing advertising on any Sinclair station’s local news programs as of Jan 10, 2005.’"
The Boston Globe reported on January 6 that Media Matters President David Brock told them Media Matters confirmed the information in the e-mail its activists received from Staples before issuing the press release. The Globe article does not make clear, however, what information Media Matters confirmed — the fact that the Sinclair news ad buy was ending January 10, or the reason it is ending.
Capelli said Staples expects to spend at least as much on Sinclair ad buys in 2005 as in 2004, and perhaps more. He explicitly confirmed that Sinclair news programming would not be excluded from their 2005 plans.
Politics, Capelli said, has nothing to do with Staples’ advertising decisions. The company tries had to be responsive to customer concerns, Capelli said, but is wholly nonpolitical.
Late January 6, the following statement still appeared on the website of Media Matters: "Citing an effort to be responsive to customer concerns over Sinclair’s injection of partisanship into its nightly newscasts, Staples, Inc., announced it will no longer advertise on local news programming on Sinclair stations nationwide."
The National Center challenges Media Matters to provide conclusive evidence the statement on its website is true.
The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative, free market organization, briefly ceased purchases from Staples following an initial news report in the Washington Post leading it to believe Staples’ had decided to boycott conservative programming. The National Center no longer believes the facts of this case warrant a conservative boycott of Staples.
Additional updates to this story, including any response The National Center receives from Staples, will be made available on The National Center’s blog.
Of course a problem here is the use of the "left wing" label. FYI, people on the left would call this conservative group a "right wing activist group." Suggestion to people on the right AND left: if you cut out the politically-loaded "wing" labels you make a MUCH more effective case arguing your case on ANY issue, even on accuracy problems. The "wing" may have something to do with an error — but journalistic assumption (a career-killing sin, by the way) may actually be what’s in play.
The case here is whether Media Matters’ report was accurate. Additionally, as we noted in our our original post, the idea of politics through corporate pressure is going to mean a continuation of the polarization wars with each side exerting pressure upon corporations of all kinds…which is going to mean Harvard Business School grads better get some background in PoliSci…fast.
Now we wait to see what Media Matter says about all this. Will they stick by their original story? Are there details we don’t know about? Did Staples give one indication then change course? Was this a case of a reporter ASSUMING Staples yielded to a boycott when it saw a change in the ad buy.
If this was a newspaper, an editor would have us call Media Matters now — and get their opinion on this statement.
But we wanted our readers to be aware…that our earlier post based on wire reports may well be wrong…and to read the full text of the email we got.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.