Andrea Nill of ThinkProgress offers "Report: CNBC Was Considering Hiring Dobbs Until Latino Groups Pushed Back" (thinkprogress.org/2009/12/05/dobbs-cnbc-nogales). Neither she nor those in her general sphere are that credible and would want to inflate their power as much as possible, so take this with a large grain of salt:
(National Hispanic Media Coalition) President Alex Nogales told ThinkProgress today that CNBC was in fact talking with (Lou Dobbs) and that his hiring was, at least in part, thwarted by the same coalition of Latino, civil rights, and media-watchdog groups that successfully campaigned to get Dobbs off CNN airwaves...
When the New York Times reported that CNBC was in negotiations with Dobbs, many of these same civil rights groups chose to similarly and quickly pressure CNBC. The groups, in a letter, warned CNBC that such a move “would be a clear demonstration that CNBC is willing to use its airwaves to promote hate.” They “respectfully” requested the network “refrain” from hiring Dobbs.
Nogales says he reached out with the groups’ concerns to Executive Vice President of Diversity for NBC Universal, Paula Madison, and informed her that his group had signed the letter and she should expect all the major Latino civil rights advocacy organizations and their allies to do the same. Nogales brought up the $30 billion pending deal between Comcast and General Electric on the acquisition of NBC Universal, pointing out that an ugly public battle would not be in NBC’s best interest. According to Nogales, he received a call one hour later from Mark Hoffman, President of CNBC, extending his sincere apologies and assuring Nogales that CNBC would not be offering Dobbs a job. Nogales says that CNBC was in fact talking with Dobbs, though it was unclear whether the two parties had reached an accord before Hoffman contacted him.
She then quotes Nogales crowing "we’re showing our power by collaborating with other groups and putting pressure on networks to do the right business thing".
This proves my point about how Dobbs supporters should approach his recent supposed flip-flop. Turning on him helps those racial power groups that want to keep the other side's views off the air.
Sat, 12/05/2009 - 15:46 · Importance: 4