Chicago-based Cars.com has suspended advertising on Sean Hannity's Fox News show.
The decision comes as Hannity and Fox News have been criticized for reporting an unsubstantiated story about the death of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer. Hannity has reported details of the story that critics say are baseless, namely that Rich leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and his murder was a result of those actions.
There is no evidence that Rich leaked emails to WikiLeaks, and Rich's family has called on Fox News to stop reporting on the baseless speculation.
Yesterday, Fox News retracted an online story that reported that Rich leaked DNC emails. Hannity, however, has not retracted or apologized for his reporting.
News of Cars.com pulling its ads from Hannity were first reported by Buzzfeed News. A Cars.com spokesman confirmed the decision to Chicago Inno.
Here's the full statement provided to us by Cars.com.
Cars.com’s media buy strategies are designed to reach as many consumers as possible across a wide spectrum of media channels. 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.
Cars.com appears to be the first reported company to pull ads from Hannity's program. The move follows last month's news of advertisers pulling out of Fox News' O'Reilly Factor after allegations of sexual harassment, which ultimately contributed to the host losing his job at the Network.
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