Shafer argued that crusades against advertisers on certain programs amount to expecting them “to vet my cable news content for me.” He challenged the notion that an advertisement on a show was tantamount to “an automatic endorsement of a program or news article.” He implied that the boycott was the equivalent of censorship, and warned that “advertisers tend to be timid, overreactive, running from controversy and conflict, and in times of perceived crisis, their timidity spreads to publishers, which is bad for journalism.” He raised the threat that the independence of publications such as the Washington Post and New York Times would be jeopardized in the end.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 11, 2019 20:37 UTC