To the Barricades, Travel Friends

I’m not going to try to convince you that Fox News is bad. But if you’re already there and you would like to do something about it, oh look, it turns out that Expedia is one of Fox News’ top advertisers. Expedia owns a number of travel companies, including HomeAway, Hotwire, and trivago.

Voting with your ballot is important, voting with your dollars is important too.

Here are three things you can do right now.

1. Write to Expedia and tell them to stop advertising on Fox News.

Mark Okerstrom: maokerstrom@expedia.com

2. Stop buying travel through Expedia and their holdings. Now. Today.

3. Pause your affiliate programs until Expedia stops giving ad money to Fox News. Yeah, that’s going to hurt if it brings you income. But look in the mirror for a minute and think about who you want to be in today’s America. Do you want to starve hateful ideas of oxygen, or not? Of course you do!

BONUS ROUND: Do you work for Expedia? Let your employer know how you feel about Expedia supporting Fox News.

Travel is a huge money maker, 2.4 TRILLION in the US economy last year. But travel is also supposed to, you know be “fatal to bigotry” yadda yadda, and that’s kind of the opposite of Fox News.

Let me be clear — I’m not saying you should shut Expedia and their portfolio out forever, ONLY until they stop giving money to Fox News.

Travel is an incredible privilege and I know through experience that when we work together, online travelers can change things for the better. Let’s get to work.

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Who’s advertising on Fox News, now? 

This page lists current advertisers. I welcome other more credible sources if you’ve got them. This person, though, they tally the ads so you don’t have to. Ugh. Thank you, citizen.

Expedia owns who now? 

Here’s a full list. Yeah, you should probably contact them all, if you’ve got time. If you don’t have time to contact them, you can still stop using them until Expedia stops funding the talking heads on Fox News.

How do I contact Expedia? 

This page lists the executive leadership, but, cute, there’s no contact info. (Sidebar, Expedia, congratulations, you appear to have an all male panel. WTF.) This page tells you to contact the board by mail, how quaint, are we in a Dickens novel? This page lists a CEO email address (Mark Okerstrom, maokerstrom@expedia.com); if you find others, please leave a comment and I’ll update this page.

What should I say? 

I don’t know, but here’s what I said.

Hi Mark,

I’ve used Expedia a fair bit in my career as a traveler, and when I helped run a travel themed non-profit (Passports with Purpose), Expedia was a generous and welcome partner. Expedia makes it easy for people to buy travel and as a writer who loves to travel and loves who travel makes us, I see this as a good thing.

Now, the politics part. It’s come to my attention that Expedia buys advertising on Fox News. As much as I want those viewers to travel more, please, oh, please, travel more, Fox News viewers, Fox News is both a distributor of and source for the President’s harmful propaganda. Fox News spreads fear of the other. I can’t think of a philosophy more contrary to what Expedia is designed to sell. Can you?

I am writing today to ask you to stop advertising on Fox News. Now. Today. I am no one of importance, a small potatoes blogger, a sometimes published travel writer. I have asked that others contact you to request the same, and also, that they shut down their Expedia (and partner) affiliate programs until Expedia ends giving money to Fox News. 

My actions might make no difference at all. But yours can. You can starve hateful propaganda of oxygen, slowing the spread of lies, making American living rooms places where people study the map for their next trip, not places where they lock the doors in fear. I’m pretty sure you want people reading maps and dreaming about getting out there. Why support those who want us to be afraid?

Think about it, please? 

Thank you.