Update: Laura Ingraham apologized for her tweet making fun of Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg, writing, "On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland." A representative for Fox News pointed out the statement to Refinery29.
Joining the pet-food company Nutrish, which almost immediately pulled its ads from Ingraham's Fox News show, TripAdvisor said it will stop advertising on her program. A spokesperson said on Thursday that the company does not "condone the inappropriate comments made by this broadcaster."
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This story was originally published on March 29, 2018, at 1:08 p.m.
After Fox News host Laura Ingraham taunted Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg on Twitter, he called for a boycott of her advertisers. So far, at least one has promised to pull ads from her program The Ingraham Angle.
Ingraham had tweeted a story from the little-known conservative website Daily Wire on Wednesday about how the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student didn't get into four colleges that he had applied to. The story also reported that he got into three other colleges, but she didn't mention that.
She tweeted: "David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA...totally predictable given acceptance rates.)"
The story, which labeled Hogg a "gun-rights provocateur," reported that he had a 4.2 grade-point average and quoted him saying that he's too busy changing the world to worry about colleges, as well as criticizing the school system in the U.S. for making students go into "massive amounts of debt just to go to college and get an education." This hardly sounds like whining.
David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA...totally predictable given acceptance rates.) https://t.co/wflA4hWHXY
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 28, 2018
The Parkland activists are known to stand up against their detractors and Hogg is no exception. He called for advertisers on Ingraham's show, The Ingraham Angle, to drop her, tweeting out a list and asking people to contact them.
Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #
— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) March 29, 2018
Top Laura Ingraham Advertisers
1. @sleepnumber
2. @ATT
3. Nutrish
4. @Allstate & @esurance
5. @Bayer
6. @RocketMortgage Mortgage
7. @LibertyMutual
8. @Arbys
9. @TripAdvisor
10. @Nestle
11. @hulu
12. @Wayfair
Nutrish, Rachael Ray's pet-food brand, has already promised to pull its ads from the show.
We are in the process of removing our ads from Laura Ingraham’s program.
— Nutrish (@Nutrish) March 29, 2018
Since they started the movement after the February 14 mass shooting, the Parkland students have already achieved several important wins. For example, several marquee-name brands, such as Delta and Hertz, have stopped working with the NRA.
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Unfortunately, this is not the first time gun-rights advocates have bullied the survivors of this massacre, many of whom are under 18 years old. Just a couple weeks ago, Leslie Gibson, a candidate for the Maine state House of Representatives, called Emma González a "skinhead lesbian" on Twitter. He soon dropped out of the race. Then, a fake image of González tearing up the Constitution went viral.
This is also not the first time Ingraham has expressed views that put her ignorance on full display. Earlier this year, she told basketball player LeBron James to "shut up and dribble" when he criticized Trump, and called James' comments "barely intelligible" and "ungrammatical." She has also said she wouldn't allow her daughter to use transgender-friendly restrooms, that minorities only voted for Obama because of his race, and that terrorism was the "price to…pay for multiculturalism."
Unlike some of her fellow conservatives, Ingraham is seen as a Trump cheerleader and has slammed the media for covering first lady Melania Trump unfavorably. But by calling out Hogg for something unrelated to the issues he is working on, many have said Ingraham is engaging in exactly what the first lady speaks out against and has made her signature issue: cyberbullying. Hogg's sister Lauren, who is also active in the #NeverAgain movement, tweeted at Melania Trump asking her to address Ingraham's bullying of her brother.
HEY @FLOTUS MY BROTHER IS LITERALLY GETTING CYBERBULLIED BY @IngrahamAngle.
— Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) March 29, 2018
ANY COMMENTS?
#NeverAgain #MarchForOurLives
Last Tuesday, the first lady held a roundtable discussion on cyber safety and technology in which she met with leaders from top companies to "discuss the positive and negative effects the internet and technology can have on children."
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"Social media and technology are interwoven in the daily lives of our children," she said at the roundtable. "As parents, we must find ways to talk openly with them about the potential dangers that exist so they can be responsible digital citizens. We have a real opportunity to teach positive online behaviors, but that also means addressing issues offline such as kindness, empathy, and respect."
Kindness, empathy, and respect can certainly go a long way.
We reached out to the White House for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
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