Two Fox News hosts urge viewers to get vaccinated despite anti-jab rhetoric from colleagues
While Fox News has come under fire for some of its on-air personalities undermining the US effort to get Americans vaccinated against the coronavirus, two of its anchors recently urged viewers to go and take the shot.
On the popular morning program Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy discussed the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which is almost entirely concentrated among unvaccinated Americans.
“Well, here’s the thing. And one of the CDC officials said yesterday, look, the pandemic right now is really just with people who have not been vaccinated. Ninety-nine percent of the people who died have not been vaccinated. What they are trying to do is make sure that all of the people who have not been vaccinated get vaccinated," he said on Monday.
He then addressed Facebook, which has been slow – and in some cases reluctant – to remove anti-vaccination disinformation from its social media platform.
“Unfortunately, and this is one of the reasons apparently that Joe Biden and the administration came out last week, the administration very frustrated," he said. "They have not been able to get Facebook to get rid of some of the disinformation. The disinformation is online: The vaccine is killing lots and lots of people or it changes your DNA or there are little microchips. None of that is true.”
Fox & Friends cohost Ainsley Earhardt discussed the frustration from the Biden administration that rampant anti-vaccination disinformation was contributing to some Americans' refusal to take the shot, after which Mr Doocy directly addressed the viewers, urging them to take the vaccine.
"If you have the chance, get the shot, it will save your life," Mr Doocy said.
Later on the show, Fox News medical commentator Marc Siegel was asked to comment on the efficacy of the vaccine.
"The vaccine works extremely well even against the Delta variant, preventing infection in 90 per cent of cases," Mr Siegel responded.
The direct encouragement for viewers to take the shot stands in stark contrast to the views expressed by the network's popular pundits, such as Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.
Mr Carlson, whose show is the highest rated in the country, has dabbled in anti-vaccination conspiracy, claiming the Biden administration was trying to "force people to take medicine they don't want or need”.
The pundit also suggested that people who don't take the vaccine will "wind up on a government list”.
Another Fox News host who frequently dabbles in conspiracy theory, Jeanine Pirro, claimed that the Biden administration's planned effort to go door-to-door to encourage Americans to take the vaccine was actually "about confiscating your gun”, a claim that is utterly without merit.
Ms Ingraham suggested that the door-to-door effort was "creepy" and has frequently pushed that some Americans have "natural immunity" to the coronavirus – an assertion not backed up by science – and was personally involved in Donald Trump's endorsement of hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus. That drug was ultimately found to be ineffective at battling the virus.
A Media Matters analysis of the network's coverage regarding the vaccine found that between 28 June and 11 July, the network aired 129 segments about the shot. Of those segments, 57 per cent included claims that either "undermined or downplayed immunization efforts”.
The network has made some efforts to promote the vaccine outside of its Fox & Friends hosts’ comments on Monday.
The network debuted a vaccine-focused PSA in February with a group of its hosts encouraging Americans to "keep up the fight" against the virus. Another Fox News host, Larry Kudlow, has also frequently mentioned on his show that he took the vaccine and impressed upon people the importance of taking the vaccine.
“Skyrocketing vaccinations is the single best stimulus of all, and the skyrocketing vaccinations will reopen virtually the entire economy," Mr Kudlow said in March. "We are on our way. Herd immunity is coming this spring.”
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