PAC Co-Founder: Fox Rejected Our Ad on Capitol Riot

MeidasTouch's minute-long spot had emotional interviews with members of law enforcement
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 7, 2021 7:33 AM CDT

A new ad about the chaos and violence faced by police officers during the Capitol riot features emotional interviews with some of those officers, but it doesn't look like Fox News viewers will get to see it anytime soon. Ben Meiselas, co-founder of the liberal, anti-Trump MeidasTouch PAC, tells the Los Angeles Times that his group placed a $185,000 ad buy with the network for its minute-long spot, which shows members of the Capitol Police and DC's Metropolitan Police talking to the media and testifying before Congress about the events of Jan. 6, including how they were doused with bear spray and called "traitors." The ad, which has since gone viral on social media, ends with the words "the GOP betrayed America" and "we will never forget" on the screen. Meiselas and his brothers, Brett and Jordan, tell the Times that on Friday, they were informed by the network it wouldn't be airing the ad, which they'd hoped would run between June 6 and 15, including during Fox & Friends.

"We couldn't have fathomed in our wildest imaginations that even a Fox News would reject an ad that simply condemns the insurrection, and condemns people who support the insurrection," Meiselas says, calling Fox a "fascist echo chamber gatekeeper for their base." The Meiselases, who say Fox never spurned one of their ads without suggesting edits, note they weren't told why the ad wouldn't run. "The fact they want to cancel and censor the voices of law enforcement who bravely guarded the Capitol [is] the height of hypocrisy, and it's un-American," Brett Meiselas says. Meanwhile, per Newsweek, several of those charged in the insurrection plan on blaming the network, as well as former President Trump, for spreading misinformation that led them to take part in the riot. "The reason he was there is because he was a dumbass and believed what he heard on Fox News," one attorney tells the AP of his client. Fox didn't respond to the Times' request for comment. (More Capitol riot stories.)

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