Advertisers Drop Savage Over Hateful Remarks, USO Hints At Suit

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Advertisers Drop Savage Over Hateful Remarks, USO Hints At Suit
by: UnCommontator
Thu Jan 24, 2008 at 06:49:41 AM EST

By Sam Stein
The Huffington Post


At least four major firms have pulled advertising from Michael Savage's nationally syndicated radio show following a campaign highlighting his inflammatory rhetoric. One other company, Geico insurance, is expected to follow suit.

The campaign, launched recently by Brave New Films, generated thousands of calls urging advertisers on the Savage Nation show to sever financial ties to the widely popular (and frequently offensive) talk host.

In less than a week, four agreed to pull their ads from the show, including Union Bank of California (whose representative says they were advertisers on the Savage show by mistake and were glad to be taken off), Intuit, Chattem, ITT Technical Institute.

"We are thrilled at the amazing response of the true patriots all over the blogsphere who responded to our NOSAVAGE campaign," Robert Greenwald, head of the film company, said in a statement. "People have called and emailed and the responsible sponsors have responded by pulling their ads and asking that their ads not be on this racist and hateful show."

But group who has segments run on the show is raising eyebrows by refusing to distance itself from Savage. The USO, a non-profit that does work for U.S. armed forces, wrote Brave New Films complaining about being targeted and even hinting at a lawsuit. The organization's lawyer Tony Bisceglie says it does not pay for the USO public service announcements that air on Savage's show.

"As a tax exempt not-for-profit organization, regulated by the Attorney General's Office of the state of California and the Internal Revenue Service, your organization may not engage in making false statements to solicit public support," Bisceglie wrote to Brave New Films. "Therefore, please take the necessary steps to remove USO from your website entirely to avoid further action on our part."

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