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Fire Hannity Effort Intensifies
Efforts to get Fox News to fire commentator Sean Hannity have intensified in recent days, amid allegations that the network collaborated with the White House in promulgating a conspiracy theory that sought to cast blame on Democratic operatives for the 2016 murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who was killed while walking home from a bar in Washington, D.C.
A lawsuit filed by private investigator Rod Wheeler alleges that Fox News and the Trump administration effectively used him to legitimate the theory that Rich was killed for providing DNC emails to WikiLeaks. In his complaint, Wheeler says the intended effect was to ameliorate the growing pressure of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.
Hannity used his prime-time program to push the Rich conspiracy theory, even as no evidence materialized that the slain 24-year-old had contact with WikiLeaks. At the time, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America launched an online campaign to pressure advertisers into dropping sponsorship of Hannity’s program. A similar campaign against Hannity’s prime-time colleague Bill O’Reilly proved successful earlier this year, leading at least in part to his departure from the network.
Fire Hannity, which launched in mid-June and more recently had a social media “relaunch,” is adopting the playbook used to depose O’Reilly last spring, as allegations about O’Reilly’s sexual misconduct accrued into a damning narrative of longstanding impropriety. “Our goal is for Hannity to meet the same fate as O’Reilly,” Lerner says. He intends to reach that goal with a comprehensive list of Hannity’s advertisers, including contact information and social media handles, thereby facilitating the kind of grassroots campaign that, the activist hopes, will pressure those advertisers into fleeing Hannity.
A lawsuit filed by private investigator Rod Wheeler alleges that Fox News and the Trump administration effectively used him to legitimate the theory that Rich was killed for providing DNC emails to WikiLeaks. In his complaint, Wheeler says the intended effect was to ameliorate the growing pressure of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.
Hannity used his prime-time program to push the Rich conspiracy theory, even as no evidence materialized that the slain 24-year-old had contact with WikiLeaks. At the time, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America launched an online campaign to pressure advertisers into dropping sponsorship of Hannity’s program. A similar campaign against Hannity’s prime-time colleague Bill O’Reilly proved successful earlier this year, leading at least in part to his departure from the network.
Fire Hannity, which launched in mid-June and more recently had a social media “relaunch,” is adopting the playbook used to depose O’Reilly last spring, as allegations about O’Reilly’s sexual misconduct accrued into a damning narrative of longstanding impropriety. “Our goal is for Hannity to meet the same fate as O’Reilly,” Lerner says. He intends to reach that goal with a comprehensive list of Hannity’s advertisers, including contact information and social media handles, thereby facilitating the kind of grassroots campaign that, the activist hopes, will pressure those advertisers into fleeing Hannity.
http://www.newsweek.com/fire-hannity-effort-intensifies-646090
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