Fox News on Ingraham: We will not let our voices be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts

This will not, in fact, be an “O’Reilly vacation” for her. She’s coming back.

“We cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts,” Jack Abernethy, co-president of Fox News, said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “We look forward to having Laura Ingraham back hosting her program next Monday when she returns from spring vacation with her children.”…

One person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to publicly comment said the boycott has not yet resulted in a significant financial hit…

Fox News executives will not comment beyond the statement, but privately they believe Ingraham’s offense does not approach the issues that brought down hosts Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck, who both lost their shows after advertisers pulled out.

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On Saturday night Bayer became the 15th advertiser to pull its ads from her show, but per the LA Times’s Fox source, not a single advertiser has pulled ads from the network. They’re just being shuffled around among different shows. It makes me laugh to think that the great “Ingraham’s mean!” boycott effort of 2018 might result in more big-brand ads running on Tucker’s and Hannity’s shows when the two of them are normally much bigger targets for the left than Ingraham is. Bayer aspirin: Strongly against goofing on high-school kids for not getting into college but okay with anti-Gypsy segments and Seth Rich conspiracy theories. You can say anything you want, just make sure not to insult David Hogg.

Tom Nichols gets the Hogg/Ingraham standoff right, more or less:

Laura Ingraham is a conservative provocateur who, like many of her Fox News prime time colleagues, has to gin up ever greater levels of outrage to keep her viewers awake and glued to the screen. David Hogg is a teenage survivor of a horrific attack on a high school who, like many young people who have achieved sudden fame, has decided that he is an oracle of wisdom.

Hogg is irritating and sanctimonious in the way young people often are. Ingraham is ghastly by design as a market brand. But Ingraham is also a grown-up who should know better.

Yes, David Hogg is turning from a youth with a good cause to a media operator who is, apparently, trying out a possible career as a political gadfly before he’s even cast his first vote. He’s put himself in the public square as a brawler who can throw and take a punch. He’s savvy and getting savvier by the minute, especially in baiting a slew of commentators into treating him as an adult, which is exactly what he wants.

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Ingraham should have known better, yes, and getting personal with Hogg was a case of supply meeting demand from her audience. Hogg is doing the same thing now, though, by insisting on a boycott despite her apology. His reflex reaction after she mocked him for not getting into the schools of his choice may have been an adolescent impulse to lash out but he is, as Nichols says, “savvy and getting savvier.” Running an anti-Fox boycott as a side gig to his anti-gun push was an exceptionally shrewd way to further build his stature on the left, whether he meant to do that or not. Nichols chalks up all of Hogg’s flaws to the petty vanities of youth. Perhaps so; that’s the charitable read. Having watched him over the past six weeks, though, I’d be surprised if his political opinions are much different 10 years from now, and if they aren’t, it’s hard to see why he would regret behaving as he has. His habit is to reduce all of his opponents to villains, a common trait in modern America amply rewarded by power centers on both sides. What’s going to happen between now and 2028, say, to make him think trying to knock down Laura Ingraham wasn’t worth it in hindsight?

By the way, YouGov ran a quickie survey testing brand approval for various advertisers who’ve pulled ads from Ingraham’s show. Results: Practically no change. Most were up very slightly, a few were down very slightly. The biggest negative brand movement was for Fox News itself, which makes sense. Apart from hardcore political junkies, no one’s paying any attention to the Ingraham boycott or which companies are participating. The only exposure most people have probably had to this story is seeing a headline somewhere that Ingraham made fun of Hogg over his college rejections, which is a bad story even if it notes her apology but not so bad that her show will remain forever toxic to corporate America. No surprise Fox is sticking with her.

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Here’s the network noting another new trend being driven by teenagers. Almost forgot: One of the advertisers who requested that their ads be pulled from Ingraham’s program is … the film “Chappaquiddick.” Which make sense, I guess. If ever there was an audience that didn’t need to be sold on seeing a movie about Ted Kennedy behaving like a complete dirtbag, it’s Fox News’s primetime crowd.

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