Hannaford Pulls Ads From TV Station 2008-04-11

JON SPRINGER

SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Hannaford Bros. is no longer buying advertising time on a television station whose news coverage of the recent security breach at Hannaford stores “lacked balance and fairness,” a company spokeswoman told SN. Carol Eleazer, vice president of marketing for Hannaford, said the retailer fulfilled its commitment to buy television ads on Portland’s WGME for the first quarter but opted not to buy advertising in the second quarter. At issue, she said, was that “much of the coverage and newscast promotion spots about the illegal data intrusion lacked fairness and balance and resulted in … a misrepresentation to its viewers and our customers.” She declined to cite specific examples of the coverage. The station in a statement said Hannaford had not pointed out any factual inaccuracies in its reporting on the data breach, which exposed 4.2 million credit and debit cards to fraudulent use. The breach was revealed last month.

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