Dear MoveOn member,

Last Tuesday night, just hours after he had been arrested on 37 federal
charges, Donald Trump gave a rambling campaign speech full of lies and
conspiracy theories at his golf club in New Jersey. At the same time,
President Biden was giving a speech honoring Juneteenth, a celebration of
the day that slavery came to an end in the United States. Fox News was the
only network that covered Trump's speech, and at one point it went to a
split screen with both speeches and displayed this chyron:



[ [link removed] ][IMG]
A chyron on Fox News referring to President Biden as a "wannabe
dictator."^1



"Wannabe Dictator."

A television network that fiercely claims to report the "news" referred to
the duly elected president as a "wannabe dictator" and made the
dangerously false claim that he was in some way involved in Trump's
arrest.

Outrageous.

The list of reasons why Fox News should be taken off the air is long,
John, but even for Fox, this latest attack on Biden is
particularly egregious.

That's why MoveOn is continuing with our campaign demanding that large
companies like AT&T stop any new advertising on Fox News, a move that
would seriously cut into their profits and could shut them down once and
for all.

And our campaign is making progress! Last week, MoveOn met with an AT&T
president to share our concerns and to deliver a petition with over 70,000
signatures calling on them to drop Fox News.

We also passed along thousands of comments from MoveOn members who are
AT&T customers, including many shareholders and employees, like this:
"AT&T needs to stop advertising with Fox News. They're enabling hate,
violence, gaslighting, lies, and fear by giving them their money. As a
member of the LGBTQ+ community and an AT&T customer for over 20 years, I
don't want my money going towards fueling hate."



This is a huge step forward for the visibility of our campaign, and we
cannot afford to let up on the gas now. Will you chip in $5
a month to keep our campaign up and running until AT&T, Subway, and
General Motors stop any new advertising on Fox?

[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in monthly.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.



While reports suggest that Fox News may have fired the person responsible
for writing the headline after the public backlash, we need to be clear
that the problems with Fox News cannot be solved by firing one producer,
one executive, or even one host.^2 When Tucker Carlson was fired, we were
reminded that the issue with Fox isn't "a few bad apples." The lies and
propaganda haven't stopped. The network itself is the problem.

Fox News exists to rake in more and more profits and will do anything to
get there. Its success is built entirely on lies, disinformation, racism,
misogyny, homophobia, and violent anti-trans rhetoric.

The network has no problem repeatedly promoting the "great replacement
theory," a racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory that has been cited in
the manifestos of multiple shooters who have committed race massacres.^3

The network provides a daily platform for bigots, including Sean Hannity,
Laura Ingraham, and Jesse Watters.

And, lest we forget, they were a primary driver of the Big Lie in the
aftermath of the 2020 election—and later became a bullhorn for the
right-wing propaganda that those white nationalists charged in relation to
the deadly January 6 insurrection did nothing wrong.

That's why MoveOn has invested in a campaign to create weekly ads
highlighting some of the worst content shared by the network in the
previous week, and we are pushing them out as widely as we can to make
sure that AT&T, GM, Subway, and other companies who still advertise on the
network know exactly what they are paying for—and so consumers know
exactly where their money is going.



This is expensive, time-intensive work, and it is critically important for
the protection of our democracy. Can you join the fight by chipping in
$5 a month?

[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in monthly.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.



Thanks for all you do.

–Kelsey, Jenn, Corinne, Chloe, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Fox News Chyron Calls Biden a 'Wannabe Dictator,'" The New York Times,
June 14, 2023
[link removed]

2. "Fox News Parts Ways With Producer Responsible for 'Wannabe Dictator'
Chyron," The Daily Beast, June 16, 2023
[link removed]

3. "Fox News uses the end of Title 42 to spread 'great replacement' theory
rhetoric," Media Matters for America, May 15, 2023
[link removed]



Want to support MoveOn's work? Book bans have skyrocketed thanks to
right-wing state laws which have forced teachers to remove books from
their classrooms. In response, MoveOn is launching a "Banned Bookmobile,"
filling it with books that the far right has banned, and driving it around
to hand out those books, for free, in highly trafficked areas that will
attract media attention. To keep the Banned Bookmobile up and running into
2024, we need your help.

Will you start a monthly gift to power our critical work?



[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in $5 a month.

[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.





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