John Hinderaker at Powerline has an item about how CNBC and MSNBC are refusing to sell ad time to a group called Freedom Watch which is supportive of winning the war in Iraq:
We wrote here about the television commercials that Freedom's Watch has produced, featuring veterans and their families, that urge Congress and the public to continue supporting the Iraq war. The commercials are well done, and convey the simple message that the Iraq war is important and winnable, and that we should allow our troops to see the mission through. The ads are appearing in the context of a blizzard of anti-war ads by left-wing groups, intended to pressure Senators and Congressmen into pulling the plug on the Iraq effort.
Freedom's Watch has placed its ads on Fox and CNN, but CNBC and MSNBC have refused to run the ads. Ari Fleischer wrote this morning on behalf of Freedom's Watch to let us know that CNBC and MSNBC have stubbornly refused to air the pro-war ads, even though they have run issue ads on other controversial topics. Freedom's Watch has written to CNBC and MSNBC to protest their decision; here is the text of that letter...
You can see one of the Freedom's Watch ads at the bottom of this post.
Running issue ads should be a no-brainer for news channels, whose obsessive viewers include policy makers, politicians, and politically active news junkies. Plus no one should reasonably expect that selling the ad time necessarily communicates a bias on an issue in news coverage one way or the other.
We'll keep an eye out for how this matter evolves.
Check out Hinderaker's August 28 post for the text of the letter.
