On Tuesday Noon, Mercedes & BMW. Allstate Plus Five More Advertisers Cut Ties To Fox News 'The O'Reilly Factor'

In the last few hours, six more advertisers joined Mercedes-Benz yesterday and Hyundai early Tuesday in pulling their advertising from the 'The O'Reilly Factor' show. BMW of North America; GlaxoSmithKline; Allstate; Constant Contact, an online marketer; Untuckit, a men’s clothing distributor; and Sanofi Consumer HealthCare, which advertised products like ACT mouthwash on Mr. O’Reilly’s show, have pulled their ad dollars, reports an updated article at the New York Times.

Marketing representatives stated that they will monitor the situation regarding the claims against Bill O'Reilly, but there is no doubt that losing eight advertisers in 24 hrs. is an emergency room issue for both Bill O'Reilly and Fox News, as well as the entire Rupert Murdoch family. 

Scandal and turmoil returned to Fox News on Monday, with ousted chairman Roger Ailes becoming the subject of a new sexual  harassment lawsuit. Also on Monday, the New York Times published a scathing investigation that found five women who made allegations of sexual harassment or inappropriate allegations against him. The five women charging O'Reilly received settlements totaling about $13 million according to the Times.

“Given the importance of women in every aspect of our business, we don’t feel this is a good environment in which to advertise our products right now,” Donna Boland, the manager of corporate communications for Mercedes-Benz, wrote in an email. Mercedes-Benz has spent an estimated $1.9 million in ads on “The O’Reilly Factor” in the last year, according to iSpot.tv, the TV ad analytics firm.

In a separate article Monday evening, the Times cited a difficult situation in dealing with money-machine O'Reilly.  Ratings are up significantly under most cable news shows in the Trump era and O'Reilly's are no exception. Viewers are likely to dismiss the women's claims, but advertisers control the purse strings. 

If more advertisers abandon Mr. O’Reilly’s show, it would be a blow to Fox News, which provides billions of dollars in revenue each year to its parent company, 21st Century Fox. Mr. O’Reilly has long been the pugnacious face of a prime-time lineup that sets the tone for conservative commentary. His show attracts almost 4 million viewers a night, and from 2014 through 2016 it generated more than $446 million in advertising revenue, according to the research firm Kantar Media.

The situation today at Fox News has to be critical. 

Jonathan Blanks Calls Dana Schutz' 'Open Casket' Painting A Bridge Between 'Us' & 'Them'

2017 Whitney Biennial painting 'Open Casket' by Dana Schutz

The Atlantic weighs in on the furor surrounding Dana Schutz' controversial painting 'Open Casket', a white woman's reflection on the savage 1955 lynching and murder of young African American Emmett Till. The young man's horrific murder and mutilated body displayed by his mother in an open casket at his funeral helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement.

AOC has covered this event in great deal. Our earlier articles follow this update. Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf and Cato Institute scholar Jonathan Blanks explore the issue of cultural appropriation and demands by Britain & Berlin-based artist Hannah Black that the painting be destroyed. Blanks is a researcher at the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice. 

Blanks has no opinion on the merits of the painting, but he fully supports -- not so much her intellectual freedom to paint whatever she wants in a free society -- but her engagement in an empathetic process. Blanks explains: 

In my experience, one obstacle to stopping those injustices is the unfortunate human tendency to conceive of even sympathetic victims from a different racial or ethnic group as "bad stuff happening to them," not "bad stuff happening to us." Even folks who don't want bad stuff to happen to anyone react with less focus and urgency when an "other" is the victim. No one wants any child to be kidnapped, but the little blond girl leads the local news; her black analog might not make the newscast.

The artist who painted 'Open Casket' was trying to bridge the gulf between “us” and “them.” She began with the general attitude that bygone travesties against a racial group to which she doesn't belong were properly of concern to her. And in this particular, she achieved a measure of empathy. “I don’t know what it is like to be black in America, but I do know what it is like to be a mother," she said, explaining her desire to engage with the loss of Emmett Till's mother. "In her sorrow and rage," she wrote, "she wanted her son’s death not just to be her pain but America’s pain.”

If you are not familiar with the 'Open Casket Story' controversy, these articles round out the story:

Col Kristin Goodwin, Openly Gay & Second Woman, Appointed Commandant Of US Air Force Academy

Col Kristin Goodwin, Openly Gay & Second Woman, Appointed Commandant Of US Air Force Academy

Col. Kristin Goodwin, an openly LGBT officer, has been appointed to become commandant of the US Air Force Academy, the first gay person and only the second woman to occupy the position. On March 21, Air Force Times reported the Goodwin appointment, one that requires Senate confirmation writes Samanatha Allen for The Daily Beast. 

LifeSiteNews declared a pending catastrophe with the headline Lesbian with 'wife' and two kids selected to lead U.S. Air Force Academy, while relaying complaints from the Pray in Jesus Name Project.

During his confirmation hearings, US Secy of Defense Jim Mattis said, “I have never cared much about two consenting adults and who they go to bed with.” Goodwin also has “outstanding service and leadership credentials,” as a U.S. Air Force Academy spokesperson told the Air Force Times. And Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell—the policy prohibiting open military service by gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people—was repealed well over five years ago.

Col Kristin Goodwin, Openly Gay & Second Woman, Appointed Commandant Of US Air Force Academy