The last big name at Fox News may be on his way out.
After weeks of leading a hysterical conspiracy-theory against a dead man, Hannity is taking a hiatus from his show “Hannity,” making many wonder if he will be coming back to the show at all.
Though officials at Fox say that Hannity’s vacation is truly that – a vacation – dropping Fox ratings and more public embarrassment has some wondering if Hannity may be going the way of O’Reilly.
As viewership for Fox continues to plummet weekly, host Sean Hannity has been trying to win viewers the best way Fox knows how to: conspiracy, hysteria, and lies.
For the past couple of weeks, Hannity has been doggedly distracting from anything Trump by hyperfocusing on the saga of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who was killed last July. Police and Rich’s family believe that the young man was killed in a botched robbery, Hannity argued that through knowledge obtained by Kim Dotcom, he knew that Rich was murdered in exchange for providing internal documents to Wikileaks.
Despite repeated pleas from Rich’s family to cease the witchhunt, Hannity has dedicated himself to the story, going on rabid tweet-storms about finding the truth.
Earlier this week, Fox News online retracted an earlier story in the Rich saga, saying that it did not stand up to their standards of truth. Despite this retraction, Hannity refused to retract or apologize for anything.
After Rich’s family once again pled for Hannity to cease his investigation into their son’s death, liberal organizations began leading a boycott of Hannity’s show, calling on advertisers to remove their ads from his show similarly to how they did when O’Reilly’s harassing ways came to light again earlier this year.
A handful of smaller advertisers responded, publicly pulling their ads from Hannity’s nightly show. Hannity chalked the advertiser exodus to a concerted effort by George Soros and David Brock to bury the truth and his investigation.
Now, Hannity has gone on an abrupt vacation, a short absence which Fox promises will not be permanent.
“Like the rest of the country, Sean Hannity is taking a vacation for Memorial Day weekend and will be back on Tuesday,” the 21st Century Fox-owned network said in a statement. “Those who suggest otherwise are going to look foolish.”
Even if Hannity does return, the short absence is likely an attempt by Fox to silence the controversy and quell the growing dissatisfaction with Fox’s last best hope.
