Boycott Frosted Flakes!

Liberal bullies are trying to pressure advertisers into boycotting Breitbart.com, one of the most popular conservative sites on the internet. Unfortunately, they are having considerable success.

As you probably know, Breitbart.com was founded by Andrew Breitbart and has been run by Steve Bannon following Andrew’s tragically premature death. Breitbart.com was an early and enthusiastic backer of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and Bannon became a close adviser to Trump. He is now headed for the White House.

I criticized the site for becoming a Trump mouthpiece, and other critiques could be leveled. But Breitbart.com is more reputable than, say, the New York Times, a Hillary Clinton mouthpiece. The site’s success has put it in the crosshairs of the left. The Associated Press reports:

Kellogg has announced that it will no longer advertise on Breitbart.com, the website formerly run by one of President-elect Donald Trump’s top aides, Steve Bannon.

The food manufacturer decided to discontinue advertising on the site as soon as it was alerted by consumers to the presence of its ads, Kellogg Co. spokeswoman Kris Charles said Tuesday.

Most CEOs of large companies are liberals, as are nearly all PR employees of such companies. So this kind of response comes naturally. The AP helpfully explains:

Breitbart has been condemned for featuring racist, sexist and anti-Semitic content.

Really? Condemned by whom? For what? The AP ritually recites these allegations against the site without citing any evidence whatsoever. The claims are false, if not ridiculous. But readers who rely on America’s daily newspapers won’t know this.

“We regularly work with our media buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that aren’t aligned with our values as a company,” Charles said. “This involves reviewing websites where ads could potentially be placed using filtering technology to assess site content. As you can imagine, there is a very large volume of websites, so occasionally something is inadvertently missed.”

Internet ad buys are placed in enormous quantities. An advertiser like Kellogg has no idea where its ads will wind up. They are all over the internet. Very possibly, some have appeared on Power Line, although I can’t recall any cereal ads offhand. Kellogg would have to go out of its way to identify a site like Breitbart.com that it wants to block from displaying its ads. This, apparently, Kellogg is willing to pay to have done, lest it have some ostensible association with the candidate who was just elected President of the United States. The company will continue advertising on Democratic Party sites.

I am not generally a fan of boycotts, but this, like so much else in our civic life, has been a one-way street. Executives at companies like Kellogg need to understand that ours is not a one-party state. For decades, surveys have shown that self-identified conservatives outnumber liberals by a ratio of one and a half to two to one. If Kellogg wants to go out of its way to align itself with a vicious, bullying left-wing minority, fine. But the company should understand that such decisions have consequences. No more Frosted Flakes. No more Fruit Loops. No more Rice Krispies. No more Nutri-Grain.

A final observation: most cereal like Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops is consumed by children. Who has more children, liberals or conservatives? Right. Kellogg might want to start looking for a new CEO.

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