Recently, Fox News host Laura Ingraham announced that she was taking a totally pre-planned vacation from her show, claiming that it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that advertisers were dropping their support for the program in the wake of her terrible comments about David Hogg and the other Parkland survivors. Today, Fox News has declared that it will not back down to public outrage over Ingraham being a bad person, releasing a statement (via Variety) that says “we cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts.” That came from Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy, who also added, “we look forward to having Laura Ingraham back hosting her program next Monday,” making it clear that Fox News is solidly standing in Ingraham’s corner, no matter how she insults the survivors of a deadly school shooting.
This comes as advertisers have continued to buckle to these “agenda-driven intimidation efforts,” with CBS reporting that Bayer, Miracle-Ear, Liberty Mutual, Ruby Tuesday, the Atlantis resort, Jenny Craig, Stitch Fix, Johnson & Johnson, and Office Depot joining the existing list of companies that have pulled their ads from Ingraham’s show, including Nutrish, Hulu, TripAdvisor, Wayfair, Expedia, Nestle, and Jos. A Bank. Fox News is putting up a strong front here, trying to make it look like it will always support Ingraham even if she loses all of her advertisers, but that can’t possibly be true—even if her ratings are just behind Hannity, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and The Rachel Maddow Show.
At the risk of promoting agenda-driven intimidation efforts, it might not be a bad idea to keep contacting her advertisers.