Arts & Entertainment

Update: Geoff Fox Protest Starts Today

The creator of a Facebook page who orchestrated the protest asked supporters to "unlike" the WTNH page for 24 hours beginning tonight.

The woman who is the driving force behind the protest over WTNH's non-renewal of weather forecaster Geoff Fox's contract wants supporters to show their displeasure by "unliking" the station's Facebook page for 24 hours.

"The plan is to 'unlike' WTNH beginning at 6 p.m. Monday and 're-like' on Tuesday beginning at 6 p.m., a 24 hour boycott," said Debra Ducoff, who created the "Keep Geoff Fox on Channel 8" page.

"Their 'likes' are inflated due to the viewers who liked them in order to post on their page," Ducoff said. "It will have more impact to do it together."

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The page, created Jan. 5 shortly after news broke that Fox would be out of work at the end of his contract next month, has already registered more than a million hits and is approaching 10,000 members.

Ducoff said she is considering organizing a peaceful protest on the New Haven Green. But the first protest the group has planned is online tomorrow when she is asking supporters to withdraw from membership of the station's Facebook page for 24 hours. And many on the page said they'll be doing just that.

Find out what's happening in North Branfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A petition started a week ago has more than 3,000 signatures urging the station to reconsider its decision. And Ducoff is urging supporters to contact not only WTNH executives but its advertisers as well to voice their anger at the station's actions.

Many page members also have changed their profile pictures to ones of Fox and promote the page on their own pages.

Fox, a Hamden resident, is on vacation in Florida and California -- a vacation planned before the revelation that his contract would not be renewed.

He has said he plans on continuing to be on the air until his contract expires Feb. 28.

On his personal blog, "My Permanent Record," he recounts how on the flight south a viewer from Enfield sent him a note written on an air sickness bag voicing her support for him and her disappointment in the station's decision.

"I am humbled by the outpouring of affection from my viewers," he wrote of the incident. "I don’t quite know what I did to deserve this."  


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