Sign language (II)

In two comments to Media Nation yesterday (here’s the link to the comment thread), WRKO Radio (AM 680) talk-show host Scott Allen Miller continued to insist that taxpayers are being forced to pick up the cost of lighting the Citgo sign in Kenmore Square. Miller wrote:

I didn’t say the Boston taxpayer refurbished the sign, Dan, but according to media reports last year when the sign was refurbished, the Boston taxpayer does pay to light it. Some “gift”! Would we be as supportive of an Exxon sign?

I’ve asked Miller to provide documentation, but haven’t seen any yet. I do know that of the three reports I was able to find from that event, in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the Associated Press, none made any such assertion. (No links for the Herald and the AP because I found them in closed databases. But you can look up the Herald story online with a library card, and the AP story pretty much rehashed what was in the papers.)

At this point, I have to assume that Miller hasn’t come up with the relevant “media reports” he cited because there aren’t any. Herald reporter Laura Crimaldi posted a comment to Media Nation yesterday in which she said: “For what it’s worth, Citgo spokesman Fernando Garay told me this morning that Citgo Oil pays the electricity bill for the Citgo sign in Kenmore Square.” In today’s Herald, Crimaldi includes Garay’s comment and confirms it with Mayor Tom Menino as well.

Despite all this, if you go to the Web site for Miller’s show this morning, it still says, “Citgo is basically owned by the government of Venezuela, and the city pays to light up the sign every night.” (My emphasis.) Yet in a post on his own blog, Miller goes on at some length about his crusade to tear down the Citgo sign without ever once making the same claim. Interesting.

As for Miller’s claim that I got it wrong when I wrote that he had said taxpayers had footed the bill for refurbishing the Citgo sign, I’ll concede that I may have gotten confused. I was driving, not taking notes or rolling tape. That’s not an excuse, just reality — I was convinced I had it right. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone with it.

Miller, on the other hand, has yet to admit he got it wrong when he said, over and over, that taxpayers have been saddled with the cost of Citgo’s electric bill every time the sign is turned on. I’m told he was going off on me yesterday morning as well. I hope he at least mentioned the URL of Media Nation.

One final thought. Miller is well within his rights to demand that the city turn off the sign in protest of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz’s denunciation of President Bush. But Boston City Councilor Jerry McDermott, as an elected official, has different responsibilities.

Both Miller and McDermott are advocating government censorship, in direct violation of the First Amendment. Miller, as a talk-show host, is exercising his right of free speech. McDermott, as a representative of the government, is not — he wants to use his power to silence someone whose speech he disagrees with.

And let’s not even get into the absurdity of trying to punish Chavéz by going after Citgo simply because the corporation is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company.

Anyway — enough.