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Antiwar Group Says Its Ad Is Rejected
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and ANDREA ELLIOTT
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/12/nyregion/12billboard.html
Published: July 12, 2004
A group of antiwar advocates is accusing Clear Channel Communications,
one of the nation's largest media companies, with close ties to national
Republicans, of preventing the group from displaying a Times Square
billboard critical of the war in Iraq.
The billboard - an image of a red, white and blue bomb with the words
"Democracy Is Best Taught by Example, Not by War" - was supposed to go
up next month, the antiwar group said, and it was to be in place when
Republicans from across the country gathered in New York City to
nominate President Bush for a second term.
But members of the group, Project Billboard, contend that Clear Channel
backed out of a leasing agreement last month that the two had reached in
December for the billboard site, on the Marriott Marquis Hotel at
Broadway and 45th Street.
A Project Billboard spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said the group planned to
file a lawsuit today in federal court in Manhattan charging Clear
Channel with breach of contract and asking it to live up to what the
group said were the terms of the deal.
Last night, the president and chief executive of Clear Channel, Paul
Meyer, said the company had objected to the group's use of "the bomb
imagery" in the proposed billboard. Mr. Meyer said Clear Channel had
accepted a billboard that would replace the bomb with a dove. However,
he said, any billboard at the site required the approval of the Marriott
Marquis management, which he said also objected to the bomb.
"We have no political agenda," Mr. Meyer said. "It's the bomb imagery we
objected to."
A spokeswoman for the hotel, Kathleen Duffy, said that the management
considered the ad with the bomb "inappropriate," but that it had not
seen the version with the dove.
Told of Mr. Meyer's comments, Mr. Wolfson said that earlier, Clear
Channel had rejected the ad with the dove as well as the one with the
bomb, demanding that the words be changed, too. "It's news to us, and
not reflected in any prior communications between Clear Channel and
Project Billboard," Mr. Wolfson said last night. "This contradicts Clear
Channel's demand that the copy be changed."
The dispute had led members of the antiwar group to accuse Clear Channel
of censorship.
"I think the idea that political advertising is banned from some part of
New York City would be repellent to New Yorkers," Mr. Wolfson said. "I
guess we can have a war, but we can't talk about it."
This is not the first time that Clear Channel, one of the nation's
largest owners of radio stations, has found itself in the middle of a
debate over free speech and censorship.
The company has been accused of using its radio stations to rally
support for the war in Iraq, while trying to silence musicians who
oppose it.
The company's critics point out, for instance, that some Clear Channel
country music stations stopped playing the songs of the Dixie Chicks
last year after the group's lead singer, Natalie Maines, told fans
during a London concert, "We're ashamed the president of the United
States is from Texas."
The company's critics also point out that the Federal Communications
Commission is considering regulations that would make it easier for
companies like Clear Channel to own more television and radio stations.
But even some of its fiercest critics agree that some claims against
Clear Channel are overstated. As it turns out, for example, its stations
were only sporadically involved in a boycott against the Dixie Chicks.
Part of what may be fueling speculation about the company's motives is
the close relationship that its executives have with the Republican
Party and the Bush administration. In the 2000 and 2002 election cycles,
for instance, the company and its officials donated slightly more than
$300,000 in unregulated money, almost all of it to Republicans,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics, an organization in
Washington that monitors political contributions.
In addition, Tom Hicks, the Texas Rangers' owner who has longtime ties
to President Bush, is a top executive at Clear Channel.
Project Billboard's representatives said the contract they signed in
December with Spectacolor, a division of Clear Channel, required the
antiwar group to pay $368,000 to use the billboard space from Aug. 2
through Nov. 2, Election Day.
But they said Spectacolor began balking after company officials saw the
ad that included the image of the bomb. The group then sent a second ad,
which replaced the bomb with a red, white and blue dove accompanied by
the same words, but Mr. Wolfson said that was also rejected.
A lawyer for Project Billboard, Doug Curtis, said that at one point
Clear Channel suggested that the group use a less provocative billboard
ad, one with the image of a little girl waving a flag accompanied by the
words, "Democracy is best taught by example."
Mr. Curtis said that earlier this month, a vice president for marketing
for Spectacolor and Clear Channel, Barry Kula, sent the group an e-mail
message that said, in part, "We hope you will appreciate that New York
City has endured a horrific attack and businesses in this area that
serve a wide array of clientele are extremely sensitive to references to
war."
Project Billboard's director, Deborah Rappaport, indicated that the
reaction of Clear Channel executives was not a complete surprise given
what she described as its poor record on free expression. "This is not
the first time," she said. "They try to suppress speech with which they
don't agree."
The dispute between Clear Channel and the antiwar group drew a mixed
reaction yesterday from visitors in Times Square.
When shown a printed copy of the antiwar ads that Clear Channel is said
to have rejected, Nene Ofuatey-Kodjoe, 36, of Stamford, Conn., became
visibly upset. "Clear Channel should not have a position one way or
another about what they put up there as long as it's not obscene," he
said.
He also scoffed at the alternative billboard proposed by Clear Channel,
with a little girl waving the flag. "All the fence-sitting is what has
gotten us to where we are today," he said. "You have got to take a
stand."
Terry and Jim Baugh, two Californians strolling north on Seventh Avenue,
said the image of the bomb bordered on treason. "That looks like they're
trying to blow up America," said Mrs. Baugh, 59, a retired dental
hygienist.
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