As Advertisers Abandon Laura Ingraham, Her Fans Say #IStandWithLaura

Ingraham
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Amid the controversy and advertiser fallout surrounding Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, fans of the conservative host have called for a boycott of the businesses who have pulled their ads from her show.

About a dozen companies have decided to stop running ads on Ingraham’s show since she engaged Parkland student and activist David Hogg on Twitter. Businesses such as Office Depot, Jenny Craig, Hulu, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Wayfair, StitchFix, Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, Atlantis Paradise Island, and Liberty Mutual have all announced they will pull their ads.

The controversy began on Wednesday, after Ingraham criticized Hogg, not over his stance on gun issues, but over what she referred to as his whining response after he got rejected by four colleges.

Ingraham tweeted:

Upon seeing this, Hogg responded by listing advertisers of Ingraham’s show, and enlisting his social media followers in an effort to persuade them to pull their ads from her show.

Hogg tweeted:

According to CBS, “Nutrish was the first to say it would stop advertising on Ingraham’s program, and other brands followed. ”

Ingraham attempted to make amends, in the spirit of Holy Week, by apologizing for her tweet and inviting Hogg on her show:

Ingraham’s overture, however, was not accepted by Hogg. “She only apologized after we went after her advertisers,” the student-turned-activist told the New York Times.

As more advertisers announced that they will no longer advertise on Ingraham’s show, fans of the conservative host took to Twitter to say that they were pulling their business from Ingraham’s former sponsors. Launching the #IStandWithLaura hashtag:

According to CBS:

‘The Ingraham Angle,’ which airs daily at 10 p.m. Eastern time, was the no. 4 cable show on TV last month, according to AdWeek, both in terms of total viewers and viewers in the 25-to-54 demographic, a coveted age group for cable news advertisers. According to AdAge, it’s on track to be the second-most viewed show in its time slot, in which it competes with MSNBC’s ‘The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.’

Fox News, which has not offered a statement, has faced a number of ad boycotts in recent years. After Sean Hannity supported Alabama judge Roy Moore in his campaign for the U.S. senate, five companies removed their ads, including Keurig. Hannity fans then launched a boycott of Keurig posting videos of themselves destroying their coffee makers on social media. The company’s CEO later apologized. And former host Bill O’Reilly lost dozens of advertisers for his show after the New York Times reported that he and Fox News had agreed to a series of secret settlements over harassment allegations.

To date, roughly a dozen advertisers have pulled their ads from Ingraham’s show. However, according to CBS’ Moneywatch, 129 companies have run ads during her show over the last ten days. Making it quite possible that Ingraham could still survive the boycott effort.

Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn

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