FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 5, 2014
Contact: Greta Bergstrom, Greta@TakeActionMinnesota.org, 651.336.6722
TV Ad Pulled by Hubbard Broadcasting Limits Political Discourse To Protect Economic Self-Interest of Corporate Conservatives
St. Paul, MN – Statewide people’s organization TakeAction Minnesota, which has offices in Duluth and Grand Rapids, issued the following statement regarding a political TV ad running in the 8th Congressional District which was pulled off the air by Hubbard Broadcasting last week in a flurry of controversy:
“The real story isn’t about Stewart Mills or Rick Nolan. The real story is about corporate conservatives limiting political dialogue and eroding free speech. It’s about a billionaire, Stanley Hubbard, protecting certain candidates who protect wealth at the expense of working people. It’s about corporate conservatives and media conglomerates owned and run by billionaires like Stanley Hubbard and the Koch Brothers protecting candidates for their own economic gain. How concentrated wealth increasingly controls public discourse at the expense of people. You can swap in any corporate conservative candidate you want for Stewart Mills.
“There are several important questions voters and the media should be asking. Why did the ad run in the first place? When and why was it decided that it must be pulled down? Did someone from the Mills campaign see it was running and call in a favor from Hubbard? Did Stanley Hubbard himself see the ad and decide it was damaging to Mills? Did someone from Hubbard’s friends connected to the Koch Brothers decide it needed the ax?
“It’s no coincidence that the ad was only pulled from Hubbard Broadcasting stations, while it has continued to run on all other TV stations time was purchased on, including NBC, CBS and FOX. Why did other stations not come to the same conclusion that Hubbard’s two stations did? And is it just a coincidence that it was done to the benefit of a candidate to which Stanley Hubbard has already donated the legal maximum? We don’t think so. Clearly there’s a conflict of interest that requires peeling back the layers of this onion. We believe the people of MN’s 8th Congressional District, and Minnesotans overall, deserve more disclosure from Hubbard Broadcasting.
“Minnesotans watching the :30 TV ad and then watching the twenty-minute Mills interview, the original source material, will come away with the same idea of where Mills stands on economic issues, including taxes and wages. The ad was edited to fit a standard TV time slot, not to change the content of Mills’ positions on issues. The real question is, why is the Mills campaign and its conservative supporters so concerned that they had the ad pulled down?”
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TakeAction Minnesota is a statewide people’s network of individual and organizational members working collaboratively to raise the voices of Minnesotans in their own communities to advance social, racial and economic justice. The organization has offices in St. Paul, Duluth and Grand Rapids.
