Fox News Told Them COVID Was Fake. Then They Got Sick.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/fox-news-covid-lies-families

Ann sat behind a mess of paperwork on her kitchen table, attempting to prepare a lesson plan for her next batch of second graders as best she could. The school year was starting in August — just under two months away. Stressful as it was to try and figure out how to teach kids over Zoom, the task oddly proved to be a good distraction from the crumbling state of the world. Until her retired 82-year-old father called from California.

Immediately, Ann’s stomach dropped; she sensed something was wrong. Living a state away in Nevada, the staunchly liberal 58-year-old had spent the last several months listening to her conservative father argue that the coronavirus was nothing more than the flu, a Democratic hoax designed in a lab to undermine President Trump.

As much as she begged her dad to take the pandemic seriously, she felt powerless against “the barrage of information coming out of Fox News” that he spent his days consuming. Not long after the pandemic began, her dad started traveling and going out to eat without a mask on. Unsurprisingly, he quickly became sick — so sick he was too weak to eat or drink water. Yet he remained in denial that it was COVID, and refused to get tested or go to the hospital. Ann did all she could from out of state and checked in with him multiple times a day, seeing to it that he hydrated and ate something when she did.

Pushing back her lesson planning to take his call, Ann recalls that her dad’s voice seemed to drift further away with every word. “It was so low I could barely hear him,” she says, “but he kept saying he wasn’t sure he was going to make it.” Earlier that day, he had been rushed to the ER with severe nausea and stomach problems, where he tested positive for coronavirus. Suddenly, the widening political divide between her and her father didn’t exist anymore. She was no longer afraid of simply “losing” her dad to Fox News by way of insurmountable political differences. Instead she feared the virus he’d been led to believe was a hoax would kill him. “I panicked but tried to sound calm and keep reassuring him that he would be okay,” she says. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure he would be.”

*snip*

[BlueWavePsych]

1. This has legal and criminal implications.

[gratuitous]

2. This is the real human cost

Dear old Dad got suckered, but good, by people who lied to him. For his trouble, he'll gasp away his life surrounded by machines and strangers, and I'll leave it to the philosophers to sort out whether his deserts are just. But Ann has to walk every last bitter mile with her dad, her only sin being dad's daughter. Nobody from Fox News or the White House will even extend the dubious courtesy of a fake condolence call; they don't care about the man they killed through misinformation. They scored political points and pwned the libtards!

[Nevilledog]

3. And ratings. Don't forget the ratings.

[maxsolomon]

6. I don't think Murdoch and Ailes created Fox for the ratings.

The brainwashing and propaganda is the point. Sow doubt, sow distrust, sow fear of all Liberal ideas.

The ratings and money are a nice bonus, but conning old people is the raison d'etre.

[crickets]

11. +1

Information is power, and in this case the power is more important than the money.

[LakeArenal]

4. Sadly this is Trump's America as he and the rest want it.

[beachbumbob]

5. karma and I have little empathy at all

some people want to learn the hard way

[Hela]

7. Seems like there's a civil suit there, at least...

...although it should really be criminal.

[DFW]

8. Hannity can always say his previous statements are now "inoperative."

Last edited Fri Sep 25, 2020, 04:50 PM - Edit history (1)

It's what Nixon's press secretary tried when getting caught in a lie.

[Claustrum]

9. Or their recent defense for Tucker Carlson that "no reasonable person would believe what he said"

Their "legal" defense is beyond ridiculous.

[crickets]

10. Fox 'News' KILLS.

There's a point past which the issue is no longer about freedom of speech, but about dangerous, life threatening propaganda. Just as it is illegal to pull a fire alarm when there is no fire, it's also illegal to disable the alarm so that it won't work when the fire comes.