Maybe now Clear Channel Communications is seeing clearly after insensitive contest

Maybe now Clear Channel Communications is seeing clearly after insensitive contest
(This is a guest post for C&L, written by the NCLR's Clarissa Martínez.)

After a member station launched an incredibly insensitive radio promotion designed to tweak Mayor Michael Coleman of Columbus, Ohio for joining the national boycott of Arizona over its new anti-immigrant law, Clear Channel found itself in the center of a national controversy and the target of the ire of Latino communities across America.

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, immediately demanded an apology from the station, and thousands of people nationwide, by phone or in writing, contacted Clear Channel General Manager Brian Dytko and President and CEO Mark Mays asking for the same.

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WTVN-AM’s response? “WTVN would like to send you where Americans are proud and illegals are scared—sunny Phoenix, Arizona! You’ll spend a weekend chasing aliens and spending cash in the desert. Just make sure you have your green card!”

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UPDATE: John Amato:

They finally did apologize for their egregious actions. You can hear the apology and see the transcript here. http://ohioactioncircle.blogspot.com/2010/06/update-wtvn-apologizes-on-air.html

This is Brian Dytko, Station Manager of WTVN with a message regarding our station’s recent “Win a Trip to Phoenix, Arizona” promotional contest. Our contest was meant as a humorous response to a City of Columbus ban on travel to Arizona by city employees. In fact, a key element of the promotion was that city employees were specifically invited to enter the contest. We regret that our promotional copy has been characterized as condoning violence. This was not our intent, and we do not condone violence of any kind. We apologize for our actions here. We are always striving to engage our community on important issues of the day and sometimes we do a better job than others, but we always take the input of our community seriously.

It was a pretty pathetic contest and tepid apology if you ask me, but an apology none the less.

More:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/maybe-now-clear-channel-communicatio

They don't condone violence? That was the apology part? And he still thinks it's adorable that they asked city employees to violate the travel ban done as an act of conscience? Oh, what good clean fun.

Without the offensive, "for those who were offended"