Unless you have been living under a rock, or on your Facebook’s Farmville account, you may be familiar with recent vulgar comments made by Rush Limbaugh, directed at law student Sandra Fluke.
Fluke was asked to speak for a House Panel by Nancy Pelosi, organized in response to the House GOP’s sausage-fest contraception panel. Following her appearance on the panel defending women’s rights to access to contraception, Rush made several derogatory remarks, including calling her a ‘slut’.
Following public outcry on Twitter and other social networks, several companies have stated that they are no longer sponsoring Limbaugh’s program:
Recent comments by Rush Limbaugh do not align w/our values, so we made decision to immediately suspend all advertising on that program.
— Sleep Number (@sleepnumber) March 2, 2012
We don't condone negative comments directed toward any group. In response, we are currently pulling our ads from Rush with Rush Limbaugh.
— Sleep Train Mattress (@theSleepTrain) March 2, 2012
We have listened to our customers & have decided to cease our advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Show immediately. https://t.co/LpJVaOiX
— Citrix (@citrix) March 3, 2012
@singingcarolyn As of today, LegalZoom has suspended all advertising on the Rush Limbaugh show.
— LegalZoom (@LegalZoom) March 3, 2012
Due to continued inflammatory comments– along w/valuable feedback from clients & team members– QL has suspended ads on Rush Limbaugh program
— Quicken Loans (@QuickenLoans) March 2, 2012
UPDATE: Carbonite CEO David Friend announced that his company will no longer sponsor Rush’s show:
Over the past two days we have received a tremendous amount of feedback on Rush Limbaugh’s recent comments. I too am offended and very concerned about his comments. Limbaugh’s remarks have us rethinking our future use of talk radio.
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.
Please know your voice has been heard and that we are taking this matter very seriously.
Sincerely,
David Friend
Hardball with Chris Matthews has a great segment on the Rush Limbaugh controversy with Sandra Fluke as a guest:
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