Jon Stahl looks at the success of the online campaign to punish the Sinclair TV network for planning to make its affiliates air an anti-Kerry film under the rubric of news (A new network takes on an old one… and wins!).
The network aired a watered-down, balanced show that included clips of a pro-Kerry film and even looked into Bush’s Texas Air National Guard record.)
Stahl asks, “What lessons does this hold for future “rapid response” campaigns?” and suggests a few:
- Don’t agonize over which tactics are best – try ’em all and continually report back on what seems to be working. In this fight, we quickly figured out that going after advertisers worked well.
- Use technology tools to quickly aggregate information and make it available to everyone. In this case, one person put together a quick, simple database where folks could report in on Sinclair advertisers. This allowed a massive, distributed boycott to take shape overnight.
- All of this stuff is way easier when you can leverage already-existing media interest. But you can amplify your voice through the blogosphere.
- You can win. So fight.
What do you think our take-homes should be?
Comments
One response to “Lessons learned from the Sinclair boycott”
Track Sinclair Broadcasting stock performance since ‘Stolen Honor’ fiasco. It’s impossible to tell what effect any boycotts of their advertisers have had on SBGI stock but to this point SBGI has not participated in the general rally in the market since Bush’s ‘re-election’.
see http://www.newsfollowup.com/boycott.htm