“It is incomprehensible to us that he has yet to be fired, and WPRO management should be ashamed that they employ such a person,” said Maureen Martin, chairwoman of For Our Daughters, the group leading the campaign against DePetro.

Martin and other activists organized the For Our Daughters group specifically to target DePetro. By highlighting his often obnoxious and insulting behavior, the group hopes WPRO will take him off the air.

According to a For Our Daughters press release: “The coalition will be distributing the video to WPRO management, Cumulus management, WPRO’s current and potential advertisers, and other state, elected, and business leaders. They also plan to widely distribute the video over YouTube and social media.”

The entire congressional delegation, nearly every statewide politician (with the very notable exception of Attorney General Peter Kilmartin) and more than 70 state legislators have refused to appear on his radio show. You can see the full list here. “We are very proud of the elected officials and candidates who are participating,” Martin said, “and this video will reassure them that they are doing the right thing by taking a strong stance against his vile brand of hatred.”

The boycott has noticeably crippled his show. (Last week he rebroadcast most of RI Future’s entire 25-minute with gubernatorial candidate Clay Pell, presumably because he is unable to book news makers himself. His addition to the interview was teasing the candidate for his effeminate voice and calling him “Clayboy” Pell.)

To date, WPRO has stood by DePetro. The new video, released yesterday, indicates that the For Our Daughters group is not going away for campaign season, a critical time for WPRO to book guests and advertisers.

“The boycotts will continue until John Depetro is off the air,” Martin said. “For anyone who thinks we are going away, we are not.”

For Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), the above tweet was the last straw. He wrote a letter to Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC saying,

Sadly, such petty and demeaning attacks have become a pattern at your network. With increasing frequency many of your hosts have personally denigrated and demeaned Americans- especially conservative and Republican Americans- without even attempting to further meaningful dialogue.

After declaring that MSNBC is “poisoned because of this pattern of behavior” Priebus declared, “Until you personally and publicly apologize for this behavior, I have banned all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC.”

Obviously Priebus has not been tuned into the way Rhode Island conservatives and Republicans feel about the boycotting of news stations. Justin Katz weighed in recently on a similar boycott against radio station WPRO because of outrageous and demeaning comments made by John DePetro in which he called women union workers “hags,” “cockroaches” and “whores.” Arguing that elected officials are not acting in their private capacities when appearing on news shows, Katz said:

This is public officials abusing their privilege and responsibility to keep the public informed in an attempt to starve a private business of the content that constitutes its product. They have a right to interpret their responsibilities so as to allow that. But it isn’t right, and Rhode Islanders should consider it evidence that they aren’t fit for public office.

Katz went on:

It sends a signal down the line to talk show hosts — or me or you — that if you are thinking of saying anything close to the nebulous line of what’s not sayable, you might be better off softening your criticism or even going with a different topic altogether.

Peggy Price, the woman who started a petition in defense of DePetro, must be outraged at the RNC’s new policy. Writing about attempts to silence unpopular speech through boycotts by political leaders, Price wrote:

Do not allow politicians… to suppress free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment!

Should Americans consider this RNC boycott of MSNBC as evidence that RNC candidates “aren’t fit for public office”? Is Reince Priebus attempting to “suppress free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment!”? These are serious charges, and in the interest of consistency Katz and Price will either have to apply their critiques to the RNC, admit they were wrong about the DePetro boycott, or attempt to lawyer their way out of the contradiction.

MSNBC has deleted the tweet and fired the staffer responsible. That wasn’t enough for Priebus until Phil Griffin personally apologized, which he did. Priebus vows to “aggressively monitor the network to see whether their pattern of unacceptable behavior actually changes.”

Here in Rhode Island Republican gubernatorial candidates Alan Fung and Ken Block have already gone back on their promise not to appear on WPRO or DePetro since the radio jock returned to the airwaves in January. Fung provided no explanation for his turnaround and Block delivered an word salad that explained nothing.

Meanwhile, John DePetro is still on the air.

“We’ve appealed to WPRO and Cumulus Media’s sense of decency in requesting that they sever their relationship with a man who degrades women by calling them whores, but it appears the only way to achieve a permanent solution is to further demonstrate just how bad this individual is for business,” said labor leader Maureen Martin, who has been the public face of For Our Daughters, the group that is trying to get DePetro off the air. “We expect others candidates and businesses will join them as our campaign grows in strength and numbers every day.”

In September, DePetro called two female labor activists whores on his WPRO morning radio show. Additionally, he’s made untrue and unfair accusations about many Democrats and left-leaning community and political groups. He was fired from a radio station in Boston for calling a gubernatorial candidate a “fat lesbian.” He and WPRO are bieng sued by a WPRO employee for sexual harassment. His wife took blame for a ratings scandal in which someone from his home address faked industry reporting forms.

Even before this campaign DePetro was widely disliked, untrusted  and often even ostracized among the political class in Rhode Island, as well among almost all of his coworkers at WPRO, but station management maintains that he still draws listeners.

Here’s the list of candidates (and one PAC) who said they will not advertise with WPRO:

• US Senator Jack Reed
• US Rep. Jim Langevin
• US Rep. David Cicilline
• Providence Mayor and Gubernatorial Candidate Angel Taveras
• Gubernatorial Candidate Clay Pell
• Secretary of State and Lt. Governor Candidate Ralph Mollis
• Secretary of State Candidate Guillaume de Ramel
• Secretary of State Candidate Nellie Gorbea
• General Treasurer Candidate Seth Magaziner
• General Treasurer Candidate Frank Caprio
• Providence Mayoral Candidate Brett Smiley
• Providence City Council President and Mayoral Candidate Michael Solomon
• Providence Mayoral Candidate Jorge Elorza
• Providence Mayoral Candidate Lorne Adrain
• American LeadHerShip PAC Chair Kate Coyne-McCoy

Three of the four expected candidates for governor said they won’t appear on WPRO until John DePetro no longer works there. And the fourth has said he won’t go on DePetro’s show any more, according to media accounts.

UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that Ken Block said, like Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, he will boycott WPRO until DePetro is off the air. The AP also reported this about Cranston Mayor Allan Fung:

…Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, said he would not appear on DePetro’s show but would appear on other shows on WPRO because he would not interfere in the station’s decision-making process and, ‘‘The unions should not be dictating how a business operates.’’

The Associated Press also reports that three of four members of the congressional delegation. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jim Langevin have all “signed on to the blanket boycott of all WPRO shows.” Congressman Cicilline retweeted his support.

DePetro has come under fire recently for calling female activists whores on his morning radio show in November. A union-led effort, called For Our Daughters, is pressuring advertisers and persuading politicians to boycott Cumulus-owned WPRO until DePetro is off the air. Simultaneously, DePetro, WPRO and Cumulus are being sued by a former employee who says DePetro sexually harassed her.

DePetro has been off the radio since the beginning of the month.

Also boycotting the local radio are Governor Chafee, more than 20 state legislators and wide range of other elected officials and candidates, as well as the Rhode Island Republican Party, reports Anchor Rising.

Justin Katz (in the first link above) uses the economic argument, that this is government intervening in the economy for personal reasons. He also sets up the idea that politicians (specifically Chafee in this instance) aren’t allowing their constituents to hear them.

Katz’s argument doesn’t hold up. Businesses can get hammered for the things they say or the things they support. If WPRO had a white supremacist or a communist host or someone who said things more repulsive than DePetro’s pronouncements, I doubt that Katz would be rushing to defend WPRO maintaining their business relationship with such a person. Even if they were a ratings bonanza. But because Katz’s views and DePetro’s are largely in line with one another, we’re being “pushe[d]… one step farther into the realm of Banana Republics and Lord of the Flies“.

Meanwhile, Marc Comtois posits on Twitter whether it’s more effective for politicians to boycott going on-air on WPRO or to go on and express their distaste and then sit through the interview.

Comtois has a way more interesting point. First, let’s talk about the politics of this. WPRO and its hosts tilt conservative. The constituencies that elect Democratic politicians tilt liberal. Therefore, there is very little for a Democratic politician to lose (politically) by refusing to going on-air on WPRO over misogynist comments made by WPRO’s most conservative host. Case in point, Gina Raimondo, whose fundraiser was the reason for the protest which led to DePetro making this remark, was one of the first politicians to join the boycott. Raimondo is one of DePetro’s favorite politicians (I suspect largely because DePetro hates unions, many unions dislike Raimondo, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend). Raimondo doesn’t appear see any problem with calling for the removal of possibly her biggest supporter in Rhode Island’s media landscape.

Notice I used the phrase “media landscape” there. That’s because WPRO is not the only radio station in town, much less the only media outlet in Rhode Island. If Rhode Islanders need to be informed as to what their politicians are doing, they can pick up a paper, turn on the T.V., check the Internet or turn the dial on their radio. It’s possible to cover virtually all of Rhode Island while missing one outlet (as disrespectful a practice as that might be).

The politicians may also have a bit of room here when dealing with WPRO. They’re not going on-air, but it’s unclear whether WPRO’s reporters will be able to get quotes. I’d bet they will. And they’ll still be able to attend news conferences and the like. But just because you have a media organization doesn’t mean you’re entitled to interviews from politicians (RI Future can attest to that).

The politicians also have a bit of leverage. It’s not as though WPRO is going to blackout coverage of the boycotting pols. After all, what Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras and Lincoln Chafee are doing is news that gets ratings. And for any blackout to be effective, it’d have to include other media organizations. Which means getting all those other news sources above to take a stand, and tacitly support the right to say misogynist things on air without consequence; while also losing the ability to gets views for their coverage of important political figures. Somehow, I don’t see this happening.

But finally, while denying WPRO’s talk-show hosts access to their lovely personalities is one thing, actually joining the boycott of the businesses that advertise on DePetro’s show is another. And it’s unlikely to me that we’ll see politicians doing that. There’s far more to lose by doing so.

UPDATE: While this post was was waiting for approval, Alan Fung announced he’s following suit. And so did the RI Republican Party. Oh and so is Ken Block.