Fox 'Anti-Woke' Campaign Leads Network To Attacks Its Own Major Shareholders
Laura Ingraham
Fox News' largest shareholders are not safe from its hosts’ “anti-woke” crusade that villainizes supposed “progressive” ideals and lambasts corporations that they dislike. In the midst of multiple lawsuits that could reveal Fox put shareholder investments at risk, the network is attacking those major shareholder companies for being “woke.”
Some of the network’s largest shareholders have found themselves stuck in the crossfire of Fox’s anti-”woke” agenda. Primarily for their implementation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street — three of the network’s largest shareholders — have all been attacked and characterized as “woke” by Fox hosts and guests. (Proponents of ESG have noted that sustainable investing isn’t political. It’s just “smart business.”)
Here are just a few examples of Fox hosts and guests lambasting some of the company’s largest shareholders because of supposed “woke” policies:
- Fox prime-time host Laura Ingraham and Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade both celebrated BlackRock losing millions of dollars because it embraced ESG. Ingraham said it was “fantastic” that Missouri pulled pension funds from BlackRock (the state did so because of the company’s “woke political agenda”). Kilmeade was “so glad” Florida pulled money from the “woke corporation” BlackRock, “instead of just thinking about it and threatening.”
- Ingraham has attacked BlackRock CEO Larry Fink multiple times for defending his company’s integration of ESG principles.
- After criticizing BlackRock for having “an enormous amount of leverage to force other companies to go woke,” Ingraham mocked Fink for defending ESG: “How benevolent. What a humanitarian.”
- Airing a clip of Fink describing BlackRock’s commitment to ESG, Ingraham then scoffed and said, “What a bunch of crap.” Later in the segment, Ingraham seemingly equated ESG to “leftist attacks,” and displayed a chyron that read, “Even Soap Isn’t Safe From Wokeness,” which also likened these efforts to “wokeness.”
- Ingraham called Fink “a blowhard” after airing a clip of him advocating for ESG principles to be incorporated into investment strategy. Her guest, West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore, later boasted that “West Virginia was the first state to divest from BlackRock” because of its commitment to ESG, or as he described it, “woke capitalism.”
- Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy specifically highlighted Vanguard and BlackRock during a segment dedicated to evaluating “high-risk” companies based on how “woke” they are. Campos-Duffy hosted the president of the organization who ranked these companies, Paul Fitzpatrick, and asked, “What can we do” to push back against these “woke” corporations.
- Fox & Friendshosted GOP presidential candidate and anti-“woke” crusader Vivek Ramaswamy to educate viewers on how to know if they are “investing in wokeness.” Strike Asset Management’s Anson Frericks also joined the segment, and the panel criticized BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street for pushing “progressive values” onto firms they own.
- Fox & Friends guest and CEO of Brave Books Trent Talbot blamed BlackRock and Vanguard for Scholastic “going woke.” Talbot claimed that Fox’s shareholders turned what was an “iconic and trusted brand” to a “woke” company that publishes “books like ‘Bye Bye Binary’ and ‘Anti-racist Baby.’”
- FoxBusiness.com published a piece that attacked BlackRock’s “radical agenda” and “woke crusade” — or rather, BlackRock’s commitment to ESG.
- FoxNews.com ran multiple opinion pieces that characterized BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street as “woke,” primarily because they embrace ESG principles.
- FoxNews.com also published multiple articles stressing BlackRock’s “wokeness,” with one also mentioning two other Fox shareholders: State Street and Vanguard. These pieces were dedicated to either ranking “woke” companies or simply bashing these Fox shareholders for being “woke.”
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
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