Liberal activists have found a potentially successful strategy to take on conservative television pundits: using social media to go after their advertisers.
That type of campaign was put to the test against Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show after the firebrand said that immigrants make America “poorer and dirtier and more divided.”
By mobilizing a huge response on Twitter and other platforms, Carlson’s critics tried to hit Fox News squarely in the wallet, by pressuring a dozen companies, including insurer Pacific Life and restaurant chain IHOP, to temporarily or permanently stop advertising on the show.
“Calling Congress doesn’t feel like an effective action anymore (for the average voter),” Angelo Carusone, president of of the liberal watchdog group Media Matters, told CNN. “People can use social media to get a direct response from companies.”
But the increasing clout of these newsletter groups and Twitter advocacy influence makers is worrying industry watchers who feel it suggests corporations are responsible to police content on news shows.
It’s a similar technique to the social media campaign against the companies behind corporate PACs that donated to the campaigns of conservatives Iowa Rep. Steve King and Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith despite allegations of racism that dogged the candidates.
Fox News has downplayed the impact of the advertisers’s exodus, saying that the companies have just shifted commercials to other shows on the network.
“We cannot and will not allow voices like Tucker Carlson to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts,” a rep for Fox News said in a statement.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
