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July 12, 2004
Antiwar Group Says Its Ad Is Rejected
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and ANDREA ELLIOTT
A group of antiwar advocates is accusing Clear Channel Communications, one
of the nation's largest media companies, with close ties to national
Republicans, of preventing the group from displaying a Times Square
billboard critical of the war in Iraq.
The billboard - an image of a red, white and blue bomb with the words
"Democracy Is Best Taught by Example, Not by War" - was supposed to go up
next month, the antiwar group said, and it was to be in place when
Republicans from across the country gathered in New York City to nominate
President Bush for a second term.
But members of the group, Project Billboard, contend that Clear Channel
backed out of a leasing agreement last month that the two had reached in
December for the billboard site, on the Marriott Marquis Hotel at Broadway
and 45th Street.
A Project Billboard spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said the group planned to
file a lawsuit today in federal court in Manhattan charging Clear Channel
with breach of contract and asking it to live up to what the group said were
the terms of the deal.
Last night, the president and chief executive of Clear Channel, Paul Meyer,
said the company had objected to the group's use of "the bomb imagery" in
the proposed billboard. Mr. Meyer said Clear Channel had accepted a
billboard that would replace the bomb with a dove. However, he said, any
billboard at the site required the approval of the Marriott Marquis
management, which he said also objected to the bomb.
"We have no political agenda," Mr. Meyer said. "It's the bomb imagery we
objected to."
A spokeswoman for the hotel, Kathleen Duffy, said that the management
considered the ad with the bomb "inappropriate," but that it had not seen
the version with the dove.
Told of Mr. Meyer's comments, Mr. Wolfson said that earlier, Clear Channel
had rejected the ad with the dove as well as the one with the bomb,
demanding that the words be changed, too. "It's news to us, and not
reflected in any prior communications between Clear Channel and Project
Billboard," Mr. Wolfson said last night. "This contradicts Clear Channel's
demand that the copy be changed."
The dispute had led members of the antiwar group to accuse Clear Channel of
censorship.
"I think the idea that political advertising is banned from some part of New
York City would be repellent to New Yorkers," Mr. Wolfson said. "I guess we
can have a war, but we can't talk about it."
This is not the first time that Clear Channel, one of the nation's largest
owners of radio stations, has found itself in the middle of a debate over
free speech and censorship.
The company has been accused of using its radio stations to rally support
for the war in Iraq, while trying to silence musicians who oppose it.
The company's critics point out, for instance, that some Clear Channel
country music stations stopped playing the songs of the Dixie Chicks last
year after the group's lead singer, Natalie Maines, told fans during a
London concert, "We're ashamed the president of the United States is from
Texas."
The company's critics also point out that the Federal Communications
Commission is considering regulations that would make it easier for
companies like Clear Channel to own more television and radio stations.
But even some of its fiercest critics agree that some claims against Clear
Channel are overstated. As it turns out, for example, its stations were only
sporadically involved in a boycott against the Dixie Chicks.
Part of what may be fueling speculation about the company's motives is the
close relationship that its executives have with the Republican Party and
the Bush administration. In the 2000 and 2002 election cycles, for instance,
the company and its officials donated slightly more than $300,000 in
unregulated money, almost all of it to Republicans, according to the Center
for Responsive Politics, an organization in Washington that monitors
political contributions.
In addition, Tom Hicks, the Texas Rangers' owner who has longtime ties to
President Bush, is a top executive at Clear Channel.
Project Billboard's representatives said the contract they signed in
December with Spectacolor, a division of Clear Channel, required the antiwar
group to pay $368,000 to use the billboard space from Aug. 2 through Nov. 2,
Election Day.
But they said Spectacolor began balking after company officials saw the ad
that included the image of the bomb. The group then sent a second ad, which
replaced the bomb with a red, white and blue dove accompanied by the same
words, but Mr. Wolfson said that was also rejected.
A lawyer for Project Billboard, Doug Curtis, said that at one point Clear
Channel suggested that the group use a less provocative billboard ad, one
with the image of a little girl waving a flag accompanied by the words,
"Democracy is best taught by example."
Mr. Curtis said that earlier this month, a vice president for marketing for
Spectacolor and Clear Channel, Barry Kula, sent the group an e-mail message
that said, in part, "We hope you will appreciate that New York City has
endured a horrific attack and businesses in this area that serve a wide
array of clientele are extremely sensitive to references to war."
Project Billboard's director, Deborah Rappaport, indicated that the reaction
of Clear Channel executives was not a complete surprise given what she
described as its poor record on free expression. "This is not the first
time," she said. "They try to suppress speech with which they don't agree."
The dispute between Clear Channel and the antiwar group drew a mixed
reaction yesterday from visitors in Times Square.
When shown a printed copy of the antiwar ads that Clear Channel is said to
have rejected, Nene Ofuatey-Kodjoe, 36, of Stamford, Conn., became visibly
upset. "Clear Channel should not have a position one way or another about
what they put up there as long as it's not obscene," he said.
He also scoffed at the alternative billboard proposed by Clear Channel, with
a little girl waving the flag. "All the fence-sitting is what has gotten us
to where we are today," he said. "You have got to take a stand."
Terry and Jim Baugh, two Californians strolling north on Seventh Avenue,
said the image of the bomb bordered on treason. "That looks like they're
trying to blow up America," said Mrs. Baugh, 59, a retired dental hygienist.
Copyright 2004
NY-Times - Antiwar Group Says Its Ad Is Rejected
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Type: discussion