A decentralized network of citizens and media activists took on the “old media” network of Sinclair Broadcasting… and won.
Josh Marshall has a solid summary:
Sinclair planned to use their hold over airwaves around the country to turn an hour of prime-time broadcast time over to an anti-Kerry informercial put together by a group that has now merged with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. My sense was always that they knew they’d take some hit but were willing to take it in part because of their ideological stance but even more because they thought they’d be made whole through (de)regulatory payback after a Bush victory.
But they got more than they bargained for. A lot more.
Thousands of individuals across the country started organizing a boycott of Sinclair’s local advertisers — the heart of their business. And the stock price commenced a rapid descent. I don’t have at my fingertips the precise numbers. But I think the company lost something like $100 million in market capitalization, or 20% of the stocks value, in little more than a week. (ed.note: please check other sources for exact amounts).
This was then compounded by a cluster of inter-related lawsuits, which would not have been possible had it not been for the predicate created by the boycott and the related stock price drop.
Eventually, Sinclair saw the writing on the wall — penciled in by major institutional shareholders, I suspect — and cried ‘uncle.’ It was all quite a feat, seeing as it mixed together the actions of policy luminaries like former FCC Chair Reed Hundt, existing activist groups like Media Matters, the absolutely invaluable work that went into the Sinclair Boycott website and mainly an army of political junkies around the country who didn’t want to see this election gamed by a gaggle of jokers in Maryland who thought they could trifle with American democracy with impunity.
What lessons does this hold for future “rapid response” campaigns? I think there are at least a few:
- Don’t agonize over which tactics are best — try ‘em all and continually report back on what seems to be working. In this fight, we quickly figured out that going after advertisers worked well.
- Use technology tools to quickly aggregate information and make it available to everyone. In this case, one person put together a quick, simple database where folks could report in on Sinclair advertisers. This allowed a massive, distributed boycott to take shape overnight.
- All of this stuff is *way* easier when you can leverage already-existing media interest. But you can amplify your voice through the blogosphere.
- You can win. So fight.
What do you think our take-homes should be?