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Dear John,
You’ve come through before, it’s time to come through again!
We’ve delivered over a quarter million letters -- 263,508 and still counting -- to the CEOs of the major cable companies with a simple message: Deplatform Fox.
Now with Fox scheduled to air Trump’s next Town Hall this week, it’s even more important we make sure cable companies get the message to stop subsidizing the dissemination of right-wing propaganda, hatred, and lies.
And if there’s one thing this upcoming Trump town hall at Fox proves: we can’t stop the pressure now. In fact, we need to turn it up.
Sign and send a direct message to the CEOs of Comcast, Charter, Xfinity, and Cox Cable and demand they stop streaming lies and disinformation by dumping Fox now.
There are a variety of ways the cable companies could withdraw their support for the “news” media company that recently agreed to pay over $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle damages resulting from pushing the “Big Lie” for Trump.
Most importantly, cable providers must stop using subscriber fees paid by all cable customers to pay Fox’s “carriage fees” -- a significant source of Fox News’ income.
That’s right, I said “all cable customers.” How could I be funding Fox News when I never even watch the channel, you may ask?
It turns out, all the major cable companies actually pay Fox for the privilege of putting Fox’s lies on the air, using these “carriage fees” paid for by your cable subscriptions. Fox News charges cable providers more than any cable channel other than ESPN. Not only do these fees help create Fox’s 35 to 40% profit margin, they produce so much income that it’s estimated Fox could lose every advertiser and still make a profit from these fees alone.
But now, these carriage fees are up for renegotiation, and Fox is in a weakened bargaining position given their recent huge loss in the Dominion Voting Systems case, and awaiting the outcome of the as-yet-unsettled Smartmatic defamation suit.
Cable companies could decide to treat Fox like almost every other cable news channel and stop paying Fox any carriage fees. They could offer a Fox-free cable bundle for those who refuse to subsidize Fox any longer.
They could even decide to stop the spread of hate and disinformation by deplatforming Fox altogether.
We know this kind of grass-roots pressure campaign can bring about results. Last summer, Verizon and DirecTV both stopped streaming One America News altogether in part in response to a similar campaign of ours. Let’s make sure Fox is next! Send your message now.
Thank you for standing up for journalistic integrity against the right-wing media machine!
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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