Yep, they're still boycotting Ford, and a bit on the the far right's echo chamber
Filed by: Alex Blaze
April 11, 2007 11:26 PM
Well, some homophobes are a bit ticked off that respectable journalists aren't giving their Ford boycott the attention that it needs to become a real, grown-up boycott. They even put out a study about the lack of media attention on it:
In covering the recent financial woes of the Ford Motor Company, most media organizations have ignored one potentially significant factor -- a year-long boycott by pro-family organizations over the corporation's support of homosexual-rights groups.
In a report released on Wednesday, the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) notes that since March 2006, "Ford has been the target of a boycott by one of the largest pro-family groups in the country, the American Family Association (AFA)."
But, it adds, "you'd never know it from media reports."
How could the media ignore their boycott, after their last one successfully cut into Disney's business and then caused the company to cave in to all their demands? Oh, wait, no, it didn't do jack taco to stop Disney. And it's probably not the cause of Ford's financial woes.
But the part of the "article" that got me was in the third paragraph. I can't keep track of all the websites that the religious right keeps spawning to carry the same silly "articles" about the same silly stories. I mean, check out how much administration goes into doing a Lexis-Nexis search:
A Nexis search conducted by CMI -- a division of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of Cybercast News Service -- revealed that over the three-day period following Ford's January 25 announcement of a 2006 loss of $12.7 billion, the media carried 653 items about the corporation's problems.
Just seems to me like they could be a whole lot more efficient if they just consolidated their organizations. They have dozens of websites that use the same material and dozens of organizations that do basically the same things, each owning others or being subdivided into new groups. I know that non-profits and advocacy groups need to have some structure to get things done, but when you've divided and subdivided so far down that you have a subdivision whose Accomplishment of the Year is a Lexis-Nexis search, maybe you've gone too far. What's next? Are they doing to divide the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center, into the Lexis-Nexis Search Group, the Google Search Group, and the Yahoo! Search Group?
Maybe I'm reading way too much into this, but I remember when the AFA was running the Agape Press's stories, which became the new OneNewsNow.com, owned by the American Family News Network, which syndicates on the Concerned Women for America website, which has its own Media Center where you can forward their press releases to your local paper (down right now). But back to OneNewsNow, which carries a few AP stories, but also some from the Cybercast News Service (not to be confused with the more moderate Christian Broadcasting Network, which broadcasts on television on The 700 Club) as well as World Net Daily.... I could go on, but I'm getting tired.
But seriously, that's quite an echo chamber there. But no one in it can explain why exactly they're picking on Ford for advertising in Out and supporting GLAAD and the HRC when so many other companies do the same. While making sense isn't all that's needed for a successful boycott, it's definitely a key component.
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3 Comments
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Perhaps they targeted Ford because they knew they could point to declining revenues and claim "success".
It doesn't take a genius to see that gas prices will do nothing but continue to climb. Factor in that US Automakers refuse to come out with anything that gets decent mileage, and even if they started today it would be awhile before they could get them to market. Looks like a recipe for declining revenues to me, and an easy target for a "successful" boycott. I'm not sure if GM and Chrysler advertise in Out or not.
Paula | April 12, 2007 8:07 AM
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But, Alex--if they all reconsolidated, then people would be able to track who they are, what they're saying, and that they're not reliable sources of unbiased information. Take the Concerned Women of America--when I first heard the name, I thought perhaps I should join. After all, I'm an American woman who's VERY concerned about the direction our country is taking.
But after a bit of investigation, I found out that actually, they're concerned about the "horrific and devastating" effect that I and my friends are having on America. It's taken a while for people to realize that CWA is concerned about the wrong things. Now that they're beginning to lose credibility, it's not surprising that they want to form a new division or whathaveyou to try to regain credibility.
Besides, it would be too easy for us if they all reconsolidated under the full name of their overarching parent organization: the Deathstar.
Jen Jorczak | April 12, 2007 9:56 AM
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Paula - Even the rosiest outlook from Ford themselves says that they're not going to have positive profits till 2009, so I think you're right here. And now they're mad that no journalist is buying into their ploy.
Jen - It seems to me that what with the CWA and the CCC and a few others that I can't remember right now that "concerned" has become a euphemism for "paranoid about changing demographics and minority empowerment".
Alex Blaze | April 12, 2007 12:14 PM
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