Keurig Blinks: Apologizes For Taking Sides Over Hannity

Man smashes his Keurig w/golf club

Keurig CEO Bob Gamgort apologized to his employees on Monday for ostensibly “taking sides” in a Media Matters-led boycott of Sean Hannity’s advertisers, according to The Daily Caller.

Media Matters president Angelo Carusone spent his weekend tweeting at Hannity’s advertisers and falsely accusing the Fox News host of defending sexual predators. Hannity has said repeatedly that Senate candidate Roy Moore has no place in politics if the allegations that he is a predator are true.

In a direct response to Carusone, Keurig promised to stop its ads from airing during Hannity’s show.

Hannity fans pledged to counter-boycott Keurig in response, and many began posting videos to Twitter of them smashing their Keurig coffee machines.

In a memo leaked to Erik Wemple of The Washington Post, Keurig’s Gamgort apologized to his employees for the way the situation was handled.

“The decision to publicly communicate our programming decision via our Twitter account was highly unusual,” Gamgort wrote. “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.”

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

Gamgort assured the employees that it was outside of protocol for Keurig to announce the ad pulls on Twitter and would make sure “this never happens again.”

“I apologize for any negativity you experienced as a result of this situation and assure you that we will learn and improve going forward,” he stated.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hannity used his radio show on Monday to encourage his supporters to stop breaking their Keurig coffee machines in protest of a decision by the company to stop airing ads on Hannity's nightly television show, part of a larger advertiser backlash against the cable host.

The backlash-to-the-backlash began on Saturday, after Keurig responded on Twitter to an appeal from Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America. "We worked with our media partner and Fox News to stop our ad from airing during the Sean Hannity Show," the company said on Twitter.

Hannity said the Keurig-smashing videos were funny, but that the coffee-maker maker was duped by Media Matters. He also said he's a fan of Keurig coffee and owns five of the company's products.