Carbonite, a company I never heard of except through its advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s show, has dropped Rush nothwithstanding Rush’s apology.
Here is the statement released earlier tonight:
A Statement from David Friend, CEO of Carbonite as of 6:45pm ET, March 3:
“No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”
Carbonite still is listed as a sponsor of the Ed Schultz Show, demonstrating an amazing hyprocrisy on the part of Carbonite. Indeed, at the same link as the update above, Carbonite’s President defending continuing to advertise on controversial talk shows such as Schultz’s:
We use more than 40 talk show hosts to help get the Carbonite message out to the public. The nature of talk radio is that from time to time listeners are offended by a host and ask that we pull our advertising. This goes for conservatives like Limbaugh and progressives like Stephanie Miller and Ed Shultz. We even get customers who demand that we pull the plug on NPR.
As an advertiser, we do not have control over a show’s editorial content or what they say on air. Carbonite does not endorse the opinions of the shows or their hosts. However, the outcry over Limbaugh is the worst we’ve ever seen. I have scheduled a face-to-face meeting next week with Limbaugh during which I will impress upon him that his comments were offensive to many of our customers and employees alike.
This is the Ed Schultz with whom Carbonite still advertises (Schultz later apologized to Ingraham):
Here is Carbonite’s public contact page. Its public media contact e-mail is [email protected]. It also has a Facebook page and Twitter account. Be polite.
Carbonite made a political statement and needlessly injected itself into the controversy in a very political way. It needs to find out that it works both ways.
Update: There are five other companies which have dropped Rush, according to Think Progress, which is giddy: Quicken Loans, SleepNumber, the Sleep Train, Legal Zoom, and Citrix Systems. Ms. Magazine is mounting a drive against Clear Channel to force Rush off the air.
Here is Carbonite’s stock chart. How low will it go now? Shareholders must be happy at the job their CEO is doing:
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