Sunday, November 29, 2020

IF YOUR AD MONEY SUPPORTS THE DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY, WE SHOULD BOYCOTT YOUR COMPANY

So this just ended:
President Donald Trump continued to push baseless claims about the election on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox News program Sunday, as he complained about the court system that has rejected legal challenge after legal challenge from his lawyers.

Trump continued to insist to Bartiromo that he won the election except for all the fraud that went on, repeatedly complaining that there’s no way Joe Biden could have gotten as many votes as he did.
Like Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, and other hosts of Murdoch TV, Bartiromo was a cheerleader throughout the interview.
Bartiromo asked how he would prove this in the courts, telling him, “Elections are the reason that our young men and women go on battlefields across the world and in some cases lose their lives, because they believe that their vote, my vote, matters just as much as your vote, and if that is not true, this is a very serious turning point for America.”

“So this is no longer about you, President Trump. This is about America and many people agree with you,” Bartiromo actually said.
We made a mistake years ago by doing nothing to protest the malignant spread of Fox News. I know that Fox makes its money from fees charged to cable and satellite services, but it still takes advertising for a reason, and we should have pushed back at some point in the past decades when Fox's bile was particularly toxic. Back when the Murdoch empire included entertainment, I believed that a boycott of the entire corporation -- Fox movies, The Simpsons on TV, Fox Sports, HarperCollins books -- would have been appropriate pushback at key moments, such as when Glenn Beck accused then-President Obama of having a "deep-seated hatred for white people."

That's not an option now, but we should still use our consumer dollars to stand up for democratic elections. We should target advertisers who sponsor programming that endorses the president's argument that the election was stolen from him. Who's advertising on Newsmax and OANN? More important, who's advertising on Murdoch shows like Maria Bartiromo's Fox Business show?

Backing the destruction of American democracy should not be cost-free. Even the threat of a consumer boycott would attract notice and put at least a little fear into advertisers.

Media Matters has tried to put pressure on Fox News advertisers, though it's not a prominent campaign. I can't find a list of Bartiromo's advertisers on Fox Business.

Can't our side go on offense for once?

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