Buzzfeed has pulled out of a $1.3 million advertising deal with the Republican National Committee because, they say, Donald Trump is hazardous to the nation’s health.
Although the site claims the decision isn’t political—”We don’t need to and do not expect to agree with the positions or values of all our advertisers,” Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti said—Buzzfeed appears to have taken the Republican nominee’s positions into account. Trump’s statements, Buzzfeed says, are “directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States…we don’t run cigarette ads because they are hazardous to our health, and we won’t accept Trump ads for the exact same reason.”
Buzzfeed does still run ads for the Lifetime Network, which some might consider hazardous, particularly to the psyche of female television viewers. But the RNC will now have to find a new way to reach Buzzfeed’s target audience of Gen-X sentimentalists and Facebook quiz-takers.
Buzzfeed’s editorial side was quick to comment that the abortive ad deal will have no impact on their relationship with Donald Trump’s campaign, which they admit is “contentious.” Buzzfeed has already faced Trump’s wrath, along with at least one of Trump’s ubiquitous lawsuit threats. But unlike the Huffington Post, they have yet to stamp all of their Trump coverage with the qualifier that Trump is a “serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther.”
The RNC refused to comment to POLITICO on the story about Buzzfeed’s withdrawal, but Buzzfeed seems to have left open the possibility of the RNC running non-Trump ads on their site.
