Is “For Our Daughters” Boycott Against WPRO Fraying?
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Is the For Our Daughters movement to get WPRO talk show host John DePetro fired fraying?
While the months-long movement that has seen a near-boycott of the station by mostly Democratic elected officials and candidates in response to DePetro calling female union protestors "whores" on-air, Democratic candidate for Mayor of Providence Brett Smiley last week provided an opinion piece that ran on WPRO and both Smiley -- and For Our Daughters' Maureen Martin -- condoned the move.
Latest Developments?
Smiley's move follows General Treasurer candidate Ernie Almonte's recent appearance on the Dan Yorke show on WPRO. The former Democrat-turned-independent Almonte had similarly signed on to the For Our Daughters pledge, but split over its execution.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST"[Almonte] believes the comments made by DePetro were unacceptable, and he supported his termination," said Almonte campaign staffer Christine Hunsinger. "However, WPRO took whatever action they deemed necessary as a private company -- DePetro was suspended off the air for several weeks, and just resigned a contract with WPRO this past spring."
"The For Our Daughters movement is union and special interest driven," continued Hunsinger. "The unions would fight on a member's behalf to be reinstated after an appropriate punishment. Special interests shouldn't hold private companies to a standard they're not willing to hold themselves to in reprimanding an employee."
"The station took its actions, and moved on," said Hunsinger. "It would be detrimental to the state to punish a million people, to not let them have access to candidates' plans, ideas, and promises -- and let them be asked the hard questions -- just to punish one person. To be honest, the unions gave it their best shot, but didn't win. DePetro's contract was re-upped. Do we still need to punish voters?"
Smiley, For Our Daughters on Record
"For Our Daughters organized a boycott of WPRO's talk radio program in response to hateful and inappropriate comments by John DePetro, and Brett is proud to be a part of that boycott. Brett has received multiple requests to appear on WPRO talk shows, particularly after showing he was the only candidate with the courage to take on Buddy Cianci, and he has always honored the terms of the boycott," said Smiley's campaign manager Josh Block.
"The boycott does not, however, apply to the WPRO news programming. For the WPRO news team to cover our campaign and to run an op-ed that was submitted to multiple news outlets...does not go against the terms of the boycott, and this was confirmed by the For Our Daughters organizers," said Block.
For Our Daughter's organizer Maureen Martin said the following on the Smiley development.
"The boycott is two part; not to appear on the talk shows and more importantly, not purchasing any political ad time on WPRO. You may have heard that many candidates have voluntarily declined to do a debate even though it would not be in violation of the boycott," said Martin. "To be clear, Brett Smiley, along with many many candidates have been very supportive of the boycott even when under great pressure."
Veteran political pollster Victor Profughi offered his thoughts on the boycott -- and present situation.
"Politicians will turn anything they can into a political issue they can use to their advantage if they can," said Profughi. "Personally I think the whole concept of political figures boycotting radio because they don't like something someone presents is not terribly helpful to the process of exchanging ideas. I think it's detrimental to the public."
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