Fox News refused to broadcast an advert for the documentary A Night at The Garden, which warns of the threat of Nazism in the U.S., because it was deemed "inappropriate" for its audience, according to reports.
The 30-second spot to promote the Oscar-nominated short film was originally purchased by the film's distributor Field of Vision, through the Charter Communication's Spectrum service, to air in the Los Angeles area, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The clip shows archive footage of an American Nazi rally that took place at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1939 shortly before the start of World War II. It ends with the tagline: "It can happen here."
The broadcast spot also shows the moment 26-year-old Jewish man Isadore Greenbaum stormed the stage in front of the 20,000 German-American Bund supporters to interrupt a speech by the group's leader, Fritz Kuhn. Greenbaum is then beaten to the ground and dragged off stage.
The trailer did not run in the end because the network decided to air breaking news coverage of President Donald Trump's rally in El Paso, Texas, instead.
Field of Vision then purchased a national spot for the advert to be played during Sean Hannity's show on Monday.
In an email seen by THR, a Fox News national ad sales spokesperson told the distributor's media-buying agency that Fox News's CEO Suzanne Scott deemed the ad "not appropriate for our air."
In a further statement to The Week, Marianne Gambelli, president for ad sales at Fox News, said the advert was rejected because it contains "disgraceful Nazi imagery regardless of the film's message and did not meet our guidelines."
Marshall Curry, director of A Night At The Garden, said he is shocked that Fox News would intervene and prevent the ad from showing.
"The film shines a light on a time when thousands of Americans fell under the spell of a demagogue who attacked the press and scapegoated minorities using the symbols of American patriotism," Curry told THR.
"It's amazing to me that the CEO of Fox News would personally inject herself into a small ad buy just to make sure that Hannity viewers weren't exposed to this chapter of American history," he added.
The ad will still air locally in Los Angeles during Hannity on Thursday after the original ad was scrapped. The film's distributor is hoping to air the ad nationally on other cable networks, THR reports. As reported by Variety, no other national TV network has aired the advert as of the evening of February 13, according to iSpot TV data.
The headline on this story has been updated.
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