Tuesday, September 21, 2010

HonestReportingCanada Gets Repulsive Poll Removed

Yesterday Q107, a classic rock radio station in Toronto, featured the following survey on its website regarding the investigation into what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara during the Gaza Flotilla:



Unbelievable.

Withing 24 hours, HonestReportingCanada had results--an apology:
AN APOLOGY TO THE RECENTLY POSTED SURVEY:

On behalf of Q107 I sincerely apologize for a survey recently posted on the Q107 website. This survey was located in a section of the site administered by a third party and neither reflects nor represents the opinions of Q107 whatsoever. We are by no means passing the buck on this matter and we take this matter seriously.

We have removed the survey from our website and we are currently re-evaluating our future relationship with this third party. We deeply apologize if we upset you in any way. We truly value the unique relationship we enjoy with our Q107 listeners and cannot fully express how sorry we are for this insensitive incident.

Blair Bartrem
Program Director, Q107
The page also has audio of the apology that was offered on air.
Here is a transcript:
"Got this last night, got a couple of emails and I just wanted to take a moment on this one because in this internet age in which we live in this stuff is very important and the last thing we'd like to do at Q107.com is give anyone the wrong idea, so I guess what had happened was there was a poll up on the Q107 website that contained some questions about some contentious issues including the Middle East and needless to say that's not somewhere we traditionally want to go and I don't mean literally, I mean figuratively, it's a very complicated situation that involves all kinds of different religious and political beliefs and I guess something was posted on the website last night in the form of a question that offended a lot of people and Blair, the program director and our boss had sent this along and so I'm going to just quickly let you know what Blair had said because there are a lot of complaints and we would like to just clear it up. As he said, 'on behalf of Q I must apologize for a survey that was recently posted on the website. This survey was located in a section of the site that is administered by a third party and it does not reflect or represent the opinions of Q107 what so ever. We are by no means passing the buck on this matter and we take it seriously. We'll be discussing our future with this third party moving forward and this survey has been removed. So first of all thanks to everybody who sent in emails, you know voicing their complaints about this, it's certainly understandable and our apologies, I mean, I didn't know this thing was up there, but hey, this is our radio station and our names are on it so we've gotta take responsibility and we'll do just that so our apologies."
HonestReportingCanada notes:
While we still await clarification to understand who this "third party" was, along with an understanding of the concrete steps that Q107 will take to ensure that this doesn't happen again, we nevertheless appreciate the very prompt and professionally actions that were taken by Q107 staff to responsibly remedy this situation.
HonestReportingCanada got quick results, and Q107 should be commended for the quick way they responded to the incident.

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