LOS ANGELES — The Breitbart News Network is seeing some of its advertisers head for the exit doors and is responding in typical Breitbart fashion: by going on the counteroffensive, labeling one of them as “un-American” and calling it a war on conservatism.
Since Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, Los Angeles-based Breitbart has experienced a backlash from some advertisers who say that the online site conflicts with their corporate values.
Breitbart took a pro-Trump stance during the campaign, supporting the Republican candidate’s views on immigration and national security. The company’s executive chairman, Steve Bannon, who is on a leave of absence, was Trump’s campaign manager and has been named chief White House strategist.
Although Bannon was quoted in Mother Jones as saying Breitbart is a platform for the “alt-right” — the ultraconservative movement associated with white nationalism — the news site has denied accusations that it engages in racist rhetoric. The company has stated that it isn’t affiliated with the alt-right and that the brand of nationalism it espouses is political, not racial.
Breitbart is fighting back at one of the advertisers — the breakfast cereal maker Kellogg Co. — by launching a Twitter campaign #DumpKelloggs that encourages its readers to sign a petition and boycott the maker of such favorites as Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.
The site said it has a community of 45 million loyal readers “who are also a powerful consumer group that reflects the values of mainstreet America.” In October, the site drew 19.2 million unique visitors, up nearly 50 percent from 12.9 million visitors in the same month last year, according to data from ComScore.
Kellogg’s guidelines state that it won’t place ads in media that “encourages offensive behavior to others, or where the media is not consistent with our product or corporate image.”
Other companies that have pulled their ads from Breitbart in recent weeks include the insurance giant Allstate and the ad exchange AppNexus.
“We determined that the site violates our hate speech prohibition,” said Josh Zeitz, a spokesman for AppNexus. He said that Breitbart was never a direct client, but that some of AppNexus’ technology partners made Breitbart’s inventory available on its exchange.
It remains unclear how much the loss in ad revenue will hurt Breitbart. The media company is privately held and doesn’t discuss its business operations. But Chief Executive Larry Solov recently told the Los Angeles Times that the company relies on advertising for the majority its revenue and that it uses multiple ad networks.
The company said Wednesday that Kellogg’s decision “will make virtually no revenue impact.” It said the move by Kellogg and other companies represents an escalation in the war “against conservative customers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House.”
On Wednesday, some of Breitbart’s top brass took to social media to take aim at the advertising defectors, describing Kellogg as “bigotry for breakfast.”
“Far, far, far more bigotry comes from the left than the right,” said Alex Marlow, Breitbart’s editor in chief, on Twitter.