StopDrLaura.com
StopDrLaura.com was a successful campaign against radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger ("Dr. Laura"), organized by gay rights activist John Aravosis.
Schlessinger has a history of uttering homophobic remarks on the air (such as characterizing gays as "biological errors"). In May 1999, she signed a deal with Paramount Television to host a syndicated television show. Aravosis, who had an email list of 15,000 subscribers, launched StopDrLaura.com on March 1, 2000, asking visitors to complain to Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone, Paramount Chairman Kerry McCluggage, and the program's sponsors, and organizing protests in 34 cities. "In the first month, 700,000 visitors to StopDrLaura.com generated 17,000 e-mails and countless faxes and phone calls to the media executives and corporate sponsors," reports Michael Cornfield. "On May 1, 2000, Paramount announced that advertising behemoth Procter & Gamble had become a sponsor of the TV show. StopDrLaura.com persuaded P&G to change its mind in a matter of weeks." Pressure on advertisers cost $30 million in advertising revenue to Schlessinger's radio program, and the television show was cancelled in March 2001.
In 2002, StopDrLaura.com won the Golden Dot Grand Prize at the Democracy Online Project's Politics Online Conference.
External links
- Michael Cornfield, "The Story of StopDrLaura.com," Campaigns & Elections, June 2002, p. 54.
