More TV advertisers have now abandoned Fox News’ “Hannity” show because of a discredited story about killing of a Democratic National Committee staffer with regard to leaked emails.
A day after Cars.com said it was leaving the show, mattress company Casper, Crowne Plaza Hotels, Peloton Cycling, video doorbell company Ring, mattress company Leesa, and USAA have reportedly also
pulled advertising from the show.
Show host Sean Hannity has been pushing a conspiracy theory about Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer who was killed in Washington, DC, last
year, on his TV and radio shows. According to the theory, Rich's killing was ordered by the Clintons in retaliation for leaking DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
Police have said his death was the
result of a robbery gone wrong.
Earlier this week, Fox News Channel retracted and removed from its site a speculative story about the 2016 murder of DNC employee Rich. Fox said the story "was
not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting."
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Hannity has now said he will no longer discuss Seth Rich “out of respect for the
family.” But Hannity also has said he has “retracted nothing.”
Cars.com issued a statement: “The fact that we advertise on a particular program doesn’t mean that
we agree or disagree, or support or oppose, the content. We don’t have the ability to influence content at the time we make our advertising purchase. In this case, we’ve been watching
closely and have recently made the decision to pull our advertising from Hannity.”
Some advertisers in the show have been shifting their advertising buys into other Fox News Channel
shows.
A Fox spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
