UPDATE #2: The New York Times covers our campaign.
UPDATE 08-13-09: Today we announced that four more major companies -- ConAgra (maker of Healthy Choice products), Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, and RadioShack -- have agreed to pull their ads from Glenn Beck's show. Our post on that news is here.
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Great news -- yet another major company has acted in response to our campaign calling on Glenn Beck's advertisers to stop supporting his show. GEICO told us that they will no longer run ads during Beck's show.
This comes on the heels of news last week that four other advertisers -- Lawyers.com, Progressive Insurance, Procter & Gamble, and SC Johnson -- also distanced themselves from Beck. None of this would have been possible without the thousands of people -- more than 75,000, now -- who have taken action and signed our petition to Glenn Beck's advertisers.
From the press release we're sending out this morning:
"On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program," said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."
"We applaud GEICO and all of the other companies who have stepped forward to pull their ads from Glenn Beck," said James Rucker, executive director of ColorOfChange.org. "Beck's rhetoric is dangerous to the fabric of our democracy, and we are heartened that so many big companies feel the same way. We won't stop here -- we're going to continue our fight to see that as many of Beck's advertisers pull their support as possible."
We're making incredible progress. As Glenn Beck's advertisers learn of his hateful rhetoric, and how deeply it concerns thousands of organized people across the country, they're deciding that they don't want their companies associated with Beck's divisive fear-mongering.
If you haven't already signed our petition to Beck's advertisers, please do, and please ask your friends and family to do the same (there's a sample email you can send them here). We're going to keep reaching out to Beck's remaining advertisers, and we'll keep you posted on ways you can help keep the pressure on.
Thanks so much for your support -- we couldn't do this without you.