Wednesday, August 12, 2009



CNN refuses ad critical of health insurer

Very fishy. A corporate tie-up somewhere?
"At least they don’t call themselves “Fair and Balanced.” Days off refusing to run an ad spot criticizing its evening host Lou Dobbs, the cable network has now refused to run an ad criticizing a top health insurance executive who recently retired with a package worth some $70 million and was paid $12.2 million in total compensation last year. Why?

The ad “unnecessarily” “singles” out an individual company and person by name.

According to Washington Post Company blogger Greg Sargent, CNN wrote the labor-backed group Americans United for Change that, “This ad does not comply with our clearance guidelines because it unnecessarily singles out an individual company and person.”

The ad claims that, on average, Cigna CEO H. Edward Hanway makes $5,883 an hour. MSNBC, meanwhile, has said they’ll run the ad.

Source

I thought ALL ads "singled out" somebody or something! But aint competition wonderful? It's money in the pocket of MSNBC.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Americans United for Change? Ever notice how these Leftist groups always pick patriotic-sounding names to hide behind?

The notoriously liberal CNN has never been known for being fair or balanced about anything, but they won't mess with the center-of-the-road Lou Dobbs, who is their #1 earner. He's also the fairest talking head on TV. Yes, that includes the clowns and buffoons at Fox.

David W. Hunter said...

"The cable network has now refused to run an ad criticizing a top health insurance executive who recently retired with a package worth some $70 million and was paid $12.2 million in total compensation last year"

What is the "ad" advertising? Is Hanway running for office? Has the health insurance company received a bailout?

Would it be OK if someone ran an add in mainstream media telling the world what you made last year? It seems like the only point of the "ad" is to criticize someone for being rich.

Dean said...

David: More likely the add was meant to point out the amount insurance companies spend on salaries and skewer them for doing so. Same thing that has been done to banking and automotive industry heads.

Not that I agree with doing so. If a company wants to spend a lot for executives, well, that's their business. And if doing so leads to them going bankrupt, that's their business too.

Anonymous said...

IMO it's a good thing to not run deregatory ads and ads targetting individuals personally.
Many countries in fact have laws preventing such ads altogether.

Of course CNN runs enough of those to make this one refusal suspicious indeed.

Anonymous said...

"If a company wants to spend a lot for executives, well, that's their business. And if doing so leads to them going bankrupt, that's their business too."

And when "we" have to bail them out, who's business is it then?

Anonymous said...

That Cigna CEO deserves his pay, I have Cigna for insurance it it is great.

Robert said...

If "we" end up "having to bail out" a failed company, that's actually a personal choice of those in government to bail them out. That is something you never see in a real free market. When it does happen, it becomes a matter between us, the people, and the government and how it chose to use our money.