Fox News Host Laura Ingraham Bullies Parkland Teen, Loses Advertisers, Then Goes on “Vacation”
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Politics Features Fox News
Fox News is already a well-known fever dream posing as a news network, but the madhouse reached a new level of absurdity this past week. It began with a totally normal tweet from a totally normal adult celebrating the fact that Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg didn’t get into some colleges.
David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.) https://t.co/wflA4hWHXY
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 28, 2018
Because adults taking teens to task on social media is tantamount to fighting a land war in Russia, Hogg fired back with heavy artillery, and we were off to the races.
Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #
Top Laura Ingraham Advertisers
1. @sleepnumber
2. @ATT
3. Nutrish
4. @Allstate & @esurance
5. @Bayer
6. @RocketMortgage Mortgage
7. @LibertyMutual
8. @Arbys
9. @TripAdvisor
10. @Nestle
11. @hulu
12. @Wayfair— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) March 29, 2018
You can guess what happened next, as 18 advertisers bailed on the Fox News flack. If you’re familiar with Ingraham’s cowardly past, you probably know what came next. Gotta love how these frauds always cite religion whenever they’re backed into a corner.
Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David…(1/2)
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 29, 2018
… immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how “poised” he was given the tragedy. As always, he’s welcome to return to the show anytime for a productive discussion. WATCH: https://t.co/5wcd00wWpd (2/2)
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 29, 2018
This still didn’t stop the flood of advertisers heading for the exits, as this announcement from Bayer came two days after Ingraham’s apology, and one day after she announced that she was taking a vacation this upcoming week.
We have stopped advertising on Laura Ingraham and we have no plans to resume any time in the future.
— Bayer US (@BayerUS) March 31, 2018
It sure would be nice if the story ended here, but that’s not the world we live in. The “respectable” journalists then showed up in droves to jump in and raise their dissatisfaction with a demogauge losing advertisers because of something she said. CNN’s Brian Stelter said “I think it’s dangerous to see these ad boycott attempts happening more and more often in this country.” Joe Concha wrote an aritcle in The Hill titled “David Hogg’s attempt to end Laura Ingraham’s career sets dangerous precedent.” God forbid should people be held accountable for their despicable actions. That’s not the kind of media landscape these guys want to live in. They just want to show up to work, sleepwalk through their Very Serious Person routine and collect their paycheck.
Most of our mainstream media seems to sincerely believe that optics matter far more than substance, and these utterly inane hot takes by Stelter and Concha are reflective of a media industry more than happy to abdicate its responsibility of challenging power, and one desperately wanting to roll over so they can get a belly rub from their financial masters. The dangerous thing isn’t a multi-millionaire TV show host demonizing a child who just watched his friends get murdered in cold blood, but that the kid responded with a tactic that will actually hurt the TV show host. These people are not journalists, they’re simply communications professionals sucking at the teat of power. It’s ironic how many capitalists hate the free market the moment the demand side of the equation expresses any measure of power. If you believe that ad boycotts of freaking TV shows are “dangerous,” then you’re just another hackish version of Laura Ingraham—albeit one less honest about your hackishness.
Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.