Hate-for-Profit TV

Elizabeth Warren made an outstanding and important statement on Twitter today. I’m sharing it here for non-twittering folks.

I know it’s difficult for anyone running for president to pass up any chance to reach thousands of viewers. Exposure is like gold for every candidate, especially ones who are lagging in the name-recognition department. But Fox News is clearly not just another TV network. It has become a de facto official media outlet for Trumpism and all that entails: hate, racism, xenophobia.

As Warren rightly and smartly points out, Fox News is in it for the money. They are profiting off of hate. And they are profiting off of stoking dangerous divisions within out society and democracy. Fox News is poison for civil society.

So I heartily applaud Warren’s principled choice to boycott the outlet. I hope other candidates follow her lead — not only in boycotting the network, but in stating loud and clear why they are boycotting Fox News. Tell your own favorite candidate to stay away from Fox. We’ll all be better off.

Here’s Warren’s full Twitter statement:

I love town halls. I’ve done more than 70 since January, and I’m glad to have a television audience be a part of them. Fox News has invited me to do a town hall, but I’m turning them down—here’s why…

Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists—it’s designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class.

Hate-for-profit works only if there’s profit, so Fox News balances a mix of bigotry, racism, and outright lies with enough legit journalism to make the claim to advertisers that it’s a reputable news outlet. It’s all about dragging in ad money—big ad money.

But Fox News is struggling as more and more advertisers pull out of their hate-filled space. A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors it’s safe to buy ads on Fox—no harm to their brand or reputation (spoiler: It’s not).

Here’s one place we can fight back: I won’t ask millions of Democratic primary voters to tune into an outlet that profits from racism and hate in order to see our candidates—especially when Fox will make even more money adding our valuable audience to their ratings numbers.

I’m running a campaign to reach all Americans. I take questions from the press and voters everywhere I go. I’ve already held town halls in 17 states and Puerto Rico—including WV, OH, GA, UT, TN, TX, CO, MS & AL.

I’ve done 57 media avails and 131 interviews, taking over 1,100 questions from press just since January. Fox News is welcome to come to my events just like any other outlet. But a Fox News town hall adds money to the hate-for-profit machine. To which I say: hard pass.

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