The Giffords Shooting: Fox Embarrassed By Palin Link, Runs for Cover
The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., will likely draw some renewed and unwelcome attention to the proposed -- and thus far unsuccessful -- advertiser boycott of Fox News Channel.
The boycott was proposed last fall by the CEO of liberal non-profit group the Tides Foundation after another lone gunman was arrested on his way to Tides HQ with the intent of killing everyone inside. Byron Williams reportedly said he was inspired by Fox's Glenn Beck, who has devoted much airtime to Tides' alleged influence.
Fox has not been linked to the Giffords shooting, and by most accounts the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, is a disturbed man who reportedly espoused irrational beliefs before he allegedly shot Giffords, a federal judge and 18 others at a meet-and-greet outside a Tucson Ariz., Safeway on Jan 8. But an eerie old video in which Giffords all but predicts her fate as she pleads with Fox News contributor Sarah Palin to tone down the violent metaphors during the midterm elections highlights Fox's role as a soapbox for inflammatory rhetoric:
We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list but the thing is the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize that there are consequences to that action.
Palin had created two maps for the election -- one on Facebook and the other (above) on the now-defunct web site TakeBackthe20.com -- in which Giffords' congressional district was overlaid with a rifle sight. Palin wrote on Twitter during the campaign, "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"
A Palin spokesperson said on Sunday that the targets were "direction locators," not gun sights. As of Monday, the Facebook page was still on the web even though the TakeBackthe20 site was down.
The Palin-supported Tea Party candidate in the race for Giffords' seat was Jesse Kelly. His web site advertised an election event with the words:
Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.Vandals also trashed Giffords' office in March during the healthcare reform debate, a period when 10 Democrats received threats.
Fox's editorial side is already trying to distance itself from the Palin-Giffords connection. One story accused those "on the left" of "looking for a way to place Loughner on the political right in a bid to gain political advantage from the carnage." Another condemned anyone who suggested that Fox and Palin went overboard:
That was the narrative of culpability spun in the immediate aftermath of the shootings by some leading liberal commentators and Democratic politicians -- despite warnings from religious leaders, lawyers, academics, ethicists, reporters and historians that such a rush to judgment only further deepens the partisan divide in America, and further poisons its discourse.Fox is clearly embarrassed by the shooting, however. In its coverage of a vigil for Giffords and the other victims, the channel abruptly cut away from its coverage when one of the mourners mentioned Palin's name.
An inflation of the advertiser boycott is the last thing Fox needs right now. Glenn Beck's radio show was dropped by WOR, one of New York's biggest radio stations, due to poor ratings. Beck's TV show has been financially decimated by the withdrawal of more than 100 companies' advertising from his program breaks after he called President Obama a racist. That's inconvenient for Fox but probably not financially significant -- many of those lost dollars probably shifted to other shows on Fox. And while the Giffords shooting will probably not cause advertisers to publicly withdraw more ad dollars from Fox -- the links are too tenuous -- it is still a PR headache that Fox's sales side could have lived without.
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