Originally published at: Brian Williams airs the political ad Fox News would not | Boing Boing
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So, Fox News, not wanting to share that information on their network, even in the interest of capitalism and making a buck
While it’s fun to pretend Murdoch is an incompetent capitalist, News Corp is a sophisticated and dangerous media business that bases its business model in maintaining a loyal and well-understood audience as much as it does in collecting on big ad buys.
So it’s always going to be a calculation of the part of Faux. In this case they decided that the cost of breaking the fascism-enabling narrative they sell their viewers on a consistent basis would be greater than the amount of the foregone ad buy. They’d rather slot in an ad for numismatic gold or prepper sludge buckets or whatever the rubes are buying these days at half the price of this ad buy and call it even.
Put another way, rejecting this ad and the revenue it might have brought in is indeed in the interest of capitalism and making (and keeping) a buck. As foolish and short-sighted as it seems to us, conservative plutocrats (and their bought-and-paid-for politicians) see more profit in enabling fascist thugs and insurrectionists than in exposing them for what they are.
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and we all know that for the GOP and its enablers the amount of fundraising and other accounts receivables from perpetuating the big lie is way way more than 185K. i agree, everyone involved knows exactly what this is all about. the damage they are causing to the country is an acceptable write off.
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One wonders at what point they (Faux/Murdick) would fold.
A million bucks? Ten million? I suspect never, but a crowdfunder with a few million bucks in hand would be a fun test.
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This sounds like a plan. How to make it happen?
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The ad would have to be about how Faux regularly rejects ads that go against its ideology. It should end with a variation on the old joke:
Fox: What kind of cable channel do you think we are?
Advertiser: We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.
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And good on BoingBoing for “re-airing” this ad! (i had not seen it myself). Short and quite convincing, if one were inexplicably not already convinced. -sigh-/Thank you.
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You can nail the evidence to a tRumpers head, and they still won’t believe it. Time for the next step, run the USA without the traitors & wackos.
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Those “in the fight” would have been even stronger had it used quotes/video from the insurrectionists themselves, bragging about what they did. Their delusional sense of righteousness is what needs to be put on display. I’d rather see a jury in a court case took over the written plans or a recording of them than the victims’ testimony.
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This was an ad targeted at the Fox News audience. People who are already stuck in an echo chamber of absurd rhetoric who have been conditioned over the last 5 year (and in reality longer) to just accept insane statements at face value and trust them. We do not want to muddy the message by introducing comments counter to the message from people they might find credible.
We know the insurrectionists are delusional, but the Fox News audience does not.
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We need to keep up this pressure. The only differences now between what we are going through, and what Germany went through in the 30’s is our slightly better economy (shaky as fuck, but…) and the lack of a vocal and organized resistance in Germany. I worry about what is happening, but if they try to pull off something even MORE shady, I know there will be millions of us in the streets. We CAN shut down this country if we want to - BLM was a warm up.
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I disagree. This was all a performance, a collusion among multiple competitors and actors in loose alliance. First, Miedas (which I think is a conservative group like the Lincoln project trying to take on trump) is desperate for attention now that Trump is gone. They made an ad and knew it wouldn’t get aired on Fox. If it were aired on fox, nobody would really care. They could have gotten on fox if they had gone to the local cable companies and bought local ads, like they do on last week tonight. Instead, they made something that went beyond what Fox could stomach, so Fox predictably rejected it–they know it is not worthwhile, and probably 9/10 ads they reject we never hear about. But Miedas then got MSNBC to air it for free as a ‘controversy’. MSNBC has been doing this for years (including the lincoln project, campaign ads, etc.), running ads as part of their coverage. I don’t think they are being suckered. It gives them free content to feed the rage machine and let smug liberals like us feel like we are cleverer than the other side. Of course, lefty sites like BB then cover the controversy about the controversy, and the clip about the ad gets a million views without having to pay a dime for broadcasting. Meidas leverages the controversy, and then I comment about it, breaking my solemn vow to take a break from social media for a month. We are all part of the dance. “Such a dance as there was danced–love is like the lion’s tooth.”
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Yes, you are essentially correct. However this “dance” MATTERS - it has and will have drastic consequences. Use the tools you have, and if slightly less repugnant Republicans want to do our work - let them.
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How long ago did rightwing radio begin? Don’t know there was EVER a leftish component broadcast as widely with such gripping results.
Somewhere between WWII end and Limbaugh maybe.
McCarthyism would have killed any left leaning broadcasting, leaving America with a choice of the right wing of capitalism or the left wing of capitalism.
Today there is a choice between the centre of capitalism or the far right of capitalism, with a small but significant minority of “forget capitalism, let’s go back to feudalism with King Trump”. Actual
left wing news media is limited to small sites on the internet, podcasts and youtube channels that you have to actively look for.
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Conservative hate radio as we know it started with this jerk:
Before WWII, Father Coughlin and others like him used radio as a platform to spread right-wing bigotry and promote fascism, but it was a different format.
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I’d happily wear a t-shirt that had the GOP betrayal tag line printed on it.
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As we got closer to the war and Coughlin leaned into the nazi rhetoric more and more FDR eventually put pressure on his dioceses to get him off the air.
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Among the many irritating things about Brian Williams is his conceit that his show is a “broadcast” that is “on the air,” when in fact it’s on cable.
Why yes I am a language nerd nitpicker, why do you ask?
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