Fox News treats its viewers as fools with latest vaccine disinformation campaign

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Amanda Marcotte
@AmandaMarcotte
For all the hand-wringing about liberal condescension, the truth is that no one — absolutely no one — has more contempt for everyday GOP voters than the Republican elites at Fox News. And the anti-vaccine campaign proves it.

Fox News treats its viewers as fools with latest vaccine disinformation campaign
No one has more contempt for everyday GOP voters than the smirking conservative elites at Fox News
salon.com
10:11 AM · Jul 20, 2021

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/20/fox-news-treats-its-viewers-as-fools-with-latest-vaccine-disinformation-campaign/


On air, the Fox News attitude about COVID-19 vaccines is one of pure loathing. Popular prime time hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham routinely suggest that the vaccines don't work, which is flatly false. In almost 60% of their segments about the vaccine, a recent analysis found, the network has pushed an anti-vaccination message, falsely implying the shots are dangerous or unnecessary.

Fox News has framed the vaccine in highly emotional culture war terms, with the shot presented to viewers like other made-up panics, such as "cancel culture" or "critical race theory." They are all a direct threat to the precious but poorly defined "freedom" that liberals supposedly want to snatch away. Viewers are made to feel that, by rejecting the vaccine, they are proving their conservative bona fides, sticking it to the liberals, and being the best MAGAs helping to make America great again.

But when the cameras are off at Fox News, suddenly everything changes. The vaccine is no longer regarded as a dangerous threat to Mom and apple pie, but a common-sense health intervention backed up by medical science. As CNN reported on Monday, Fox News — while decrying "vaccine passports" on-air — has been using a vaccine passport among their own staff since early June. Vaccinated employees who get what is called the FOX Clear Pass "are allowed to bypass the otherwise required daily health screening" and basically return to normal life inside the Fox offices.

This reporting caused rounds of completely justified outrage among liberals online, with "hypocrites" being the preferred term thrown around. But really, what the folks at Fox News are up to is much worse than garden variety hypocrisy. The whole thing is a dark reminder that the well-heeled pundits and corporate executives at Fox News have almost bottomless contempt for their own viewers, who they see as a bunch of gullible rubes to be exploited and discarded as needed for profit and political gain. Indeed, they hold their viewers in such low regard that they will happily talk their viewers into contracting a highly contagious, extremely dangerous, and easily prevented disease — for no other purpose than creating headaches for a Democratic president and, quite likely, the cheap thrill of having so much power over other people.

*snip*

[keithbvadu2]

1. Vaccines work

Vaccines work

[smb]

3. Yep

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. Newsmax and OAN are even worse!

Newsmax viewers are nearly twice as likely to refuse the vaccine than Fox News watchers, new poll finds
https://www.businessinsider.com/newsmax-fox-news-vaccine-hesitancy-poll-oann-2021-7

A recent survey on how news consumption affects policy views found that Fox News viewers are much less vaccine hesitant than those who tune into further right-wing cable channels Newsmax and One America News Network (OAN).

In a summary of the findings from the Public Religion Research Institute published on the data news site FiveThirtyEight, a shifting landscape in conservative media emerged as a possible explanation for the disparity...

For Republicans who identified as getting most of their news from Fox, 54% said they've either already taken the COVID-19 vaccine or plan to get it as soon as possible. Just 32% of GOP Newsmax and OAN viewers said the same.

As for those who said they would refuse the vaccine, 16% of Fox watchers said they would compared to 32% for Newsmax and OAN.

[underpants]

4. Excellent paragraph

This reporting caused rounds of completely justified outrage among liberals online, with "hypocrites" being the preferred term thrown around. But really, what the folks at Fox News are up to is much worse than garden variety hypocrisy. The whole thing is a dark reminder that the well-heeled pundits and corporate executives at Fox News have almost bottomless contempt for their own viewers, who they see as a bunch of gullible rubes to be exploited and discarded as needed for profit and political gain. Indeed, they hold their viewers in such low regard that they will happily talk their viewers into contracting a highly contagious, extremely dangerous, and easily prevented disease — for no other purpose than creating headaches for a Democratic president and, quite likely, the cheap thrill of having so much power over other people.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. The cheap thrill of power...

... is how a former Australian PM described the Murdoch family, whom he's known personally.

They might be creating more problems in this country than Putin could even dream of accomplishing. Yet he said it's the power and influence, simply for the sake of it, that motivates the Murdoch family.

[scipan]

7. This is amazing. Thanks for posting.

[Captain Stern]

6. In fairness to fox news.....their viewers 𝘢𝘳𝘦 fools. n/t