AN OPEN LETTER TO MICROSOFT’S PR PEOPLE

rrt@wagged.com [Short for MS’s PR firm, Waggoner Edstrom]

Dear rrt,

I am wondering if you are aware of the dangers posed to Microsoft’s reputation by MSNBC’s decision to give air time to one of America’s most xenophobic, hateful, race-baiting and foul-mouthed liars.

I refer, as you proabably know, to MSNBC’s recent announcement that Michael Savage will have his own TV show on Saturday afternoons.

As a PR practitioner myself, I am prepared for the usual canned response: MSNBC is a separate entity under separate management and the views of its hosts in no way reflect our own and blah blah blah blah. The bottom line remains that this is Microsoft-NBC that is perpetrating this misdeed, and to believe there will be no fallout up there in Redmond is to swim in a sea of delusion.

Can Microsoft truly be at ease knowing that it, directly or indirectly, is hiring a man who says of immigrants, “You open the door to them and the next thing you know, they are defecating on your country and breeding out of control”? Do you really want this type of slanderer receiving a paycheck that has the Microsoft name on it?

Savage has made it quite clear what he thinks of “the degenerates on the left who want to sell Americans on the idea that homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, even sex with animals is normal.” I can’t believe that Microsoft, a company with many gay employees, could want to be associated with this insanity. Do you see something good about this, something positive? Am I missing something — is there a way this kind of publicity might be of some benefit?

Never one to keep his prejudices and loathings to himself, Savage’s litany of crimes is long and detailed. And now he’ll be spouting his poison with the MSNBC logo over his head. That’s half Microsoft, half NBC.

Please take a moment to think about it. Microsoft has had its ups and its down when it comes to PR. Does it really need this rotting albatross tied around its neck?

Warmest regards,

Richard (aka, The Peking Duck)

[quotes courtesy of Eschaton]