What you need to know about Fox News' Laura Ingraham taunting David Hogg, getting dropped by sponsors, and what all that means
The Ingraham Angle lost many major sponsors within 24 hours of her ill-advised tweet
Fox News' Laura Ingram, left, is feeling the heat for picking on student activist David Hogg, right.On Wednesday, Fox News personality Laura Ingraham got a quick reaction from her advertisers after she criticised one of the Florida school shooting survivors on social media: some of them have since dropped her.
Ingraham, tweeted on Wednesday, “David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it.”
Hogg, a student who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, responded by tweeting a list of a dozen advertisers that are top sponsors of Ingraham's show, The Ingraham Angle, and encouraged his followers to call them and ask them to drop Ingraham. Hogg has faced intense criticism from right-wing conservatives and gun advocates who have falsely called him a crisis actor following the Valentine’s Day shooting in Parkland that killed 17.
Within 24 hours, companies such as Nestle, Wayfair (which sells home goods), TripAdvisor and Rachel Ray’s dog food brand Nutrish all said they are removing their support from Ingraham. By Thursday afternoon, Ingraham apologised on Twitter, “On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologise for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland”.
The swift results reveal just how much power the Parkland survivors have in, not just inspiring people all over the world and putting together rallies, but in urging corporate America to act.
It's unclear whether Ingraham's previous sponsors will change their minds after her apology on social media.