On Monday, Fox executives pitched the nation’s media buyers on purchasing the network’s ads for the next year at their annual upfronts presentation. The Fox brass were bound to desperately try to ignore the elephant in the room: The event opened roughly 48 hours after a white supremacist gunman whose manifesto details the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory popularized and mainstreamed by the network’s biggest star, Tucker Carlson, killed ten people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

Those media buyers, like anyone else doing business with Fox, should recognize that the network’s highest priority is producing this brand of white nationalist propaganda. Their ongoing willingness to buy Fox’s ads is a crucial part of the network’s business strategy.

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch and network CEO Suzanne Scott have ignored any number of warning signs and protests from inside and outside the network that Carlson’s white nationalist rants were dangerous, as The New York Timesdetailed earlier this month. They have an affinity for his views, appreciate his ratings and the money he generates — or both — and so have given him the green light to do as he pleases.

The only thing that could plausibly make them stop is if doing so stops being so profitable. Until that happens, Carlson knows they have his back, and he can laugh off people who point out that his show promotes the grievances and worldview of neo-Nazis.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.