Last week, Fox News host Sean Hannity came to the defense of Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore after the Washington Post released a detailed report documenting Moore’s alleged history of sexual abuse and misconduct. Though Hannity walked back his remarks (somewhat), the damage was already done and his show lost a few advertisers, including Keurig, the coffee-maker company known for its individual K-cup pods. As backlash, some of the sharper Hannity fans recorded videos of themselves destroying their own Keurig products.
Perhaps unaware that the destroyed Keurig machines had already been accounted for in sales figures, company CEO Bob Gamgort didn’t want it to appear that Keurig took sides about whether it is appropriate for a 32-year-old assistant district attorney to allegedly molest a 14-year-old girl.
Here's part of the memo that Keurig CEO Bob Gamgort sent to company employees today regarding "Hannity" flap. pic.twitter.com/bGNEfGapqd
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) November 13, 2017
According to a memo sent to Keurig employees, Gamgort stated that the company should not have tweeted that it was ending its advertising relationship with Hannity. “This gave the appearance of ‘taking sides’ in an emotionally charged debate that escalated on Twitter and beyond over the weekend, which was not our intent,” Gamgort said.
“We worked with our media partner and Fox News to stop our ad from airing during the Sean Hannity Show,” the company tweeted Sunday.
Gamgort said that the public tweet was “highly unusual and “done outside of company protocols.” He added that the company would be overhauling its “issues response and external communications policies” in order to never appear to be taking a stance against pedophilia ever again.
(Via The Hill)