Sykes choosing words more carefully? His 'spot' becomes paid commercial

[This was written Sunday, but you'll find today's latest update at the bottom.--Xoff.]

Has Charlie been hearing from the lawyers?

Is it just my imagination, or is Republican radio shill Charlie Sykes beginning to watch his words just a little more closely as he describes the corporate-financed radio commercial he's been running that basically calls Gov. Jim Doyle a racist?

Do you think Charlie's been talking to the corporate lawyers about where the line is between unregulated free speech and regulated issue advocacy advertising?

You be the judge:

When he first played the commercial, produced by WTMJ staff using WTMJ production facilities and aired on WTMJ radio, Sykes called it a spot. You don't have to be a radio professional to know that a spot is a commercial. They are used interchangeably.

His first post on the subject:

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18, 2006, 8:40 a.m.
GOVERNOR DOYLE, GET OUT OF THE SCHOOLHOUSE DOOR

This is the script of the spot we played this morning. [He also offered a link to the audio, which is called " 189 School Choice Ad" on the station's website.

Wednesday afternoon's WisPolitics report:

WTMJ-AM conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes is running a spot on his show featuring young voices blasting Doyle for "blocking school choice opportunities for hundreds of African American students here in Milwaukee." The spot draws comparisons between Doyle and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who once stood in front of a schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop desegregation of that institution.

When asked who was paying for the spot, which is running on Sykes' show, Sykes responded via e-mail:

"This is what makes it interesting. No one is paying. Mikel Holt (the editor of the Milwaukee Community Journal) and I put it together on our own. For free. We are making it available to anyone who wants to use it. Right now, it is simply an element of my show."

Sykes stammered a bit on the air Friday morning before defiantly playing the spot over and over. He introduced it as a "spot," then said it was "an element" of his show, and finally, at the prodding of his producer, called it a "message."

Afterwards, this was Friday post on Sykes Writes:

We will continue to air the message from the kids as part of my show.... authorized and paid by no one. For now, it's not an ad, because no one bought it, no one paid for it, and it does not run in any of our ad breaks. But once again: Mikel and I have agreed to make the spot available to anyone who DOES want to turn it into an ad on any station of their choice. Smoke on that, Xoff.

From WisOpinion.com Friday ...

-- WTMJ-AM conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes today responded to criticism on a controversial school choice spot running on his show. The spot, which features young African American voices blasting Doyle for "blocking" school choice opportunities, was criticized by one Dem blogger [Guess who?] yesterday as free corporate issue advertising.

In an e-mail to WisPolitics, Sykes clarified, writing, "at this point it is not an ad, because no has bought it. No one has paid for it. It is not run in any of our ad blocks. It is an element of my show."

Sykes indicates that all of the voices featured in the ad are students in the choice program. ``None of them were paid. The ads were recorded in the WTMJ studios," writes Sykes.

So Sykes insists "it is not an ad," and in the next breath says "the ads were recorded in the WTMJ studios."

Saturday Journal Sentinel:

Voucher advocates have launched a series of moves aimed at pressuring Doyle to agree to lift the cap. Commercials in which students and others urge Doyle to "lift the cap" have been running on radio and television in Milwaukee and Madison ...

In one commercial, students say Doyle is "standing in the schoolhouse door" the way segregationist Southern governors did in the 1950s and '60s.

Clearly, what Sykes has done is to produce an ad, a spot, a commercial. It is running for free on the state's biggest radio station, owned by Journal Broadcast Corp., a large corporation. The commercial is clearly issue advocacy. Corporations are not allowed to spend money on issue advocacy. To run the commercial as many times as it already has would cost school choice supporters or opponents thousands of dollars.

Is this beginning to sound even a little problematic?

Sykes' defenders say there is no difference between him spouting off his right-wing talking points for three and a half hours every morning and running a free commercial. But there is an obvious difference, and anyone who's listening can tell what it is. A commercial is a commercial is a commercial -- even if you claim it's just "an element" of your show. Even the newspaper calls it a commercial.

Sykes tries to use Mikel Holt, the black newspaper editor, and the black students of Messmer High, whose voices are on the commercial. He plays the race card, says I'm trying to silence black kids, calls it the kids' message when what they were doing was following a script he gave them. He's using those kids, and he's putting words in their mouths to unfairly paint Jim Doyle as a racist. That's what makes this whole thing so disgusting.

So when is a spot not a spot? Why, when Charlie says it's not.

---

UPDATE: Now the Coalition for America's Families, the same wingnut group that brought us the racist anti-immigration ad attacking Jim Doyle,says that it will buy the ad and pay to put it three Milwaukee radio stations with black audiences.

"Well, now it **is** an ad," he crows on Sykes Writes. Indeed it is. It always was an ad. And now it is an issue ad being run as a paid commercial on other stations while the Journal Broadcast Group continues to run it for free on WTMJ-AM.

Sykes and his right-wing friends have just proven my point. If it continues to run on WTMJ, it should be as paid issue advertising there, too.

UPDATE 2: Sykes mixes misdirection with bluster.