Chicago's Cars.com To Pull Advertising From Fox News' 'Hannity' Show
By Rachel Cromidas in Arts & Entertainment on May 25, 2017 2:35PM
TV personality Sean Hannity (left) at the White House press briefing with Sean Spicer. Via Getty Images
The Chicago-based site Cars.com has decided to pull advertising from Sean Hannity's Fox News show, shortly after a media watchdog group published a list of the show's advertisers.
The cars classified ads website was among several advertisers to part ways with Hannity in the wake of a scandal involving Hannity's furthering of a conspiracy theory around a high-profile news story. Other advertisers that have announced they would no longer advertise with Hannity's show included the mattress companies Casper Leesa, the exercise company Peloton, USAA, Crowne Plaza Hotels and the doorbell company Ring.
“We don’t have the ability to influence content at the time we make our advertising purchase,” Cars.com said in a statement Wednesday. “In this case, we’ve been watching closely and have recently made the decision to pull our advertising from Hannity.”
Hannity, known for his strong support of President Donald Trump and right-wing political beliefs, was in the news Wednesday (and received big ratings, according to the Tribune) for saying that he would stop talking on air, "for now," about a false story speculating that a murdered Democratic National Committee chairman may have leaked DNC information to WikiLeaks. Fox had reported on the story but later retracted its reporting.
The announcement came after Hannity had already frequently discussed the discredited story on air and initially insisted that he "retracted nothing," even as family members of the murdered chairman begged in a Washington Post op-ed for news outlets to stop publishing the false story speculating on his death. (Police say the man, Seth Rich, died in a robbery that turned violent).
The media watchdog organization Media Matters published a list of Hannity's advertisers to show consumers how some companies' ad dollars were supporting the show. The move prompted Hannity to tweet his frustration about the list Wednesday:
Media Matters lie. @GoAngelo U said outrageous things. But I BELIEVE in free speech. Will u List Colbert, Real Time sponsors? They r liberal https://t.co/HahtxBkDdz
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 24, 2017