Thoughts and Prayers for Dana Loesch and NRATV
The NRA announced on Wednesday that it has shut down production of its live broadcasting channel, NRATV, and effectively cut ties with its de facto spokesperson, Dana Loesch—all part of severing a three-decades-long business relationship with the advertising firm Ackerman McQueen.
“While NRATV may continue to air past content, its live broadcasting will end and its on-air personalities—Ackerman employees including Dana Loesch—will no longer be the public faces of the NRA,” the New York Times reported.
This is a more than interesting development because Loesch once very much served as the de facto public face of the NRA, to the point where she was dispatched to represent the group at a very memorable and painful CNN town hall near Parkland, Florida, in the immediate aftermath of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year. She was also a star on NRATV, where she hosted the aptly titled program Relentless. But Loesch evidently rubbed NRA leadership the wrong way when she helped turned NRATV into a kind of Fox News copycat—for example, by performing right-wing outrage over a new African engine character on the children’s show Thomas & Friends (Ku Klax Klan hoods were mocked up on the trains for the segment on her show).
“Many members expressed concern about the messaging on NRATV becoming too far removed from our core mission: defending the Second Amendment,” NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre wrote in a message to members on Wednesday, according to the Times. “After careful consideration, I am announcing that starting today, we are undergoing a significant change in our communications strategy. We are no longer airing ‘live TV’ programming.”
The news—especially where Loesch is concerned—was widely noted and celebrated among gun-reform advocates, including Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America founder Shannon Watts, who re-shared one of Loesch’s greatest-hit (er, most despicable) tweets:
My personal favorite response, though, came from progressive Christian leader Reverend Dr. Chuck Currie, who borrowed the NRA’s favorite phrase to offer his condolences.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
