SAN FRANCISCO – Following the release of new jailhouse interviews that further connect the ‘580 Shooter’ with Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck, Tides Foundation CEO Drummond Pike is calling on major companies that advertise on Fox News Channel to pull their advertising from the conservative news station.
In a letter sent Friday to ten major companies who advertise on Fox News Channel – JP Morgan Chase, Geico, Zurich Financial, Chrysler, Direct Holdings Americas (Time-Life), GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Lilly Corporate Center, BP and The Hartford Financial Services Group – Pike cites the newly released interviews in which Byron Williams admits being inspired by Glenn Beck, calling him a “schoolteacher” who “exposed things that blew my mind.”
Williams was arrested in July on California Highway 580 after a shootout with local police. He admitted he was on his way to the Tides Foundation and the ACLU in San Francisco to “start a revolution” by murdering staffers at both companies.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Pike’s letter states. “It’s an American issue. No one, left, right or center, wants to see another Oklahoma City…It has become clear that the only way to stop supporting Beck is to stop supporting Fox News.”
Beck has frequently criticized the otherwise little-known Tides Foundation on his daily Fox News Channel show (29 times prior to the attempted attack). Pike warns that unless something is done, Beck will continue to inspire violent acts, stating that there will be “blood on many hands.”
Glenn Beck’s television program has been the target of a successful advertising boycott launched by ColorOfChange.org and other groups in July 2009 and continues to keep more than 100 companies from buying advertising time on his show. Most of those companies, however, are still advertising on Fox News Channel during different timeslots.
Read the full letter Pike sent to advertisers here: http://blog.tides.org/2010/10/15/dear-fox-advertiser/
Hear the audio from the interviews with Williams here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-hamilton/progressive-hunter-brjail_b_757841.htm