Meghan McCain seems to be
completely delusional about
the messaging from Fox News in
response to the coronavirus vaccine
and, quite honestly,
the pandemic overall.
So, what am I talking about here?
Let's listen to what McCain had
to say, and then we'll debunk it.
>> I was watching Fox and
Friends this morning.
Steve Doocy said, get the vaccine,
hit that spot and run just like
the mothership of media and
if someone like Steve Doocy is
imploring people to get the vaccine
I think that's effective and
not everybody on Fox News is,
saying don't get the vaccine.
I actually haven't heard anyone
say that, but
maybe I'm just misinformed.
>> You're misinformed.
You're definitely misinformed.
So look, there's one of two options
here, option number one, which is
usually the side that I lean in,
there being bad faith actors and
they're intentionally lying.
Maybe I'm too pessimistic about
people and
maybe she is just misinformed.
So, let's go ahead and
inform Meghan McCain
about the reality of the situation.
So over a two week period from June
28 through July 11,
Fox News aired 129 segments about
coronavirus vaccines.
Of those more than half,
57% included claims that either
undermined or
downplayed immunization efforts.
45% of segments included claims
suggesting that the vaccination
drive is coercive or that it
represents government overreach.
37% of segments included
claim suggesting that vaccines
are unnecessary or dangerous.
And by the way, let's just keep in
mind that we're only talking about
Fox News here which among right
wing outlets that include
Newsmax and OAN is not the worst,
right, the other outlets
are actually worse than Fox News is
on this issue.
Fox & Friends including its early
morning and
weekend iterations aired the most
vaccine segments during this period
with more than half 52% featuring
claims undermining or
downplaying vaccines.
All the Fox's weekday evening
opinion shows with vaccine
segments.
Fox News Primetime,
Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity,
and the Ingram Angle- included
claims undermining or
downplaying coronavirus vaccines
in those segments.
I mean, there's more data that just
counters what Meghan McCain said
there.
But I say this and
I think I find this story important
to cover because now it's very
clear that Fox News hosts have been
vaccinated even as they're pushing
anti-vaccine, disinformation
campaigns.
And the reason why I think they're
changing their tone a little bit,
is because look what's happening in
California, because of people
who have not gotten vaccinated,
the Delta variant is spreading
rapidly among unvaccinated people.
The cases of new coronavirus
patients has gone up and so
California has decided to,
Los Angeles County has decided to
reimplement mask mandates for
endorse.
And so people who have
been vaccinated already,
feel like they're being punished.
So, all of a sudden you hear some
right wingers saying things like
get vaccinated, because they're
worried about more shutdowns
they're worried about having to
wear masks again themselves.
And whenever it has something to do
with them, whenever it impacts them
personally, that's when all of
a sudden it's like, maybe we should
get the right information out
there and get people vaccinated.
So that's what she was referring to
with Steve Doocy, which we'll get
to in just a second but
was I wanted to get your thoughts,
>> Yeah, you talk about
zero credibility.
You got to be talking about
Meghan McCain.
She's clearly a clown, that just
goes without saying it to pretend
that Fox News hasn't been part of
the disinformation campaign.
And sort of propaganda to get
people to be a lot of gets
a freaking vaccine is ridiculous
but like you said, Ana which is
important that people understand.
Fox News is the most sane in that
world of right wing media.
Would you mentioned stuff like
Newsmax and OAN and then of course,
there's talk radio,
where of course, wrestling power,
wrestling Bob.
There's a bunch of his acolytes
in that industry in
the radio industry, doing this very
thing all day every single day.
So even if you want to pretend that
Fox News has been part of
the solution and not the problem.
It doesn't matter on hate radio.
That's all they're pushing
all the time.
>> No, you're absolutely right
because for them,
it's just content to engage in
that allows them to differentiate
themselves from the libs, right?
Everything is about
owning the libs.
That's how these content creators,
whether it be on radio or
television, that's how all these
right wing hosts make a name for
themselves.
And then when they have to face
the consequences of
the disinformation that they've put
out there, all of a sudden they
change their tune a little bit.