Today we are learning there have been talks between the White House and Fox News on how they are covering the pandemic.
CNN says White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed “White House officials are in regular contact with Fox News.” She added, “We understand, also, the importance of reaching Fox’s audience about the COVID-19 vaccines and their benefits, like we are with all of you here today, we, of course, are in regular contact, and we also make efforts to have officials out on our range of networks to talk about COVID-19. We don’t see it as a partisan issue, we don’t see vaccines as a political issue. It’s an issue about keeping Americans safe.”
Perhaps recent talks helped steer some of Fox’s hosts in a different direction when it comes to pushing the vaccine.
It’s the type of commonsense warning repeated ad nauseam by public health officials for the past 15 months: “Please take COVID seriously.” But what’s remarkable about the medically sound advice is its source. On Monday night, Sean Hannity became the latest Fox News personality to push back on dangerous strains of COVID-19 denial and vaccine hesitancy within right-wing circles.
“I believe in science, I believe in the science of vaccination,” Hannity asserted.
“Just like we’ve been saying,” he added, “please take Covid seriously. I can’t say it enough. Enough people have died. We don’t need any more deaths.“
Hannity made his pro-vaccine message more palatable to his largely anti-vaccine audience by stressing the importance of “medical privacy” and “doctor-patient confidentiality.” He urged people to do their “research” as if the world’s top medical institutions aren’t in lockstep agreement on the importance of the jab. And his “just like we’ve been saying” comment flies in the face of anti-vaccine, anti-mask, and anti-lockdown rhetoric pushed by Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram, two of Fox News’ top-rated hosts. The New York Times explains:
Mr. Carlson, Ms. Ingraham and guests on their programs have said on the air that the vaccines could be dangerous; that people are justified in refusing them; and that public authorities have overstepped in their attempts to deliver them.
Mr. Carlson and Ms. Ingraham last week criticized a plan by the Biden administration to increase vaccinations by having health care workers and volunteers go door to door to try to persuade the reluctant to get shots.
Carlson called the door-to-door effort “the greatest scandal in my lifetime, by far.” Ingram said it was “creepy stuff.”
But as the Delta variant has caused a resurgence of COVID-19 – primarily among the unvaccinated – other Fox News personalities have encouraged inoculation.
On Monday, Fox & Friends’ Steve Doocy told viewers, “If you have the chance, get the shot. It will save your life.”
Doocy even pushed back on vaccine disinformation, saying, “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 News’ Bill Hemmer struck a similar note later on Monday in a segment with medical contributor Marc Seigel: “The vaccine works, right? We haven’t budged on that, have we, doc?”
“The vaccine works extremely well even against the delta variant, preventing infection in 90 percent of cases,” Siegel responded.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wouldn’t confirm which personalities they have contacted specifically at Fox News but did say: “Everybody has a role to play in this. it’s so important to make sure that we get out the efficacy of covid-19. It’s important to see personalities like on Fox and other networks because we have been talking to everyone, not just Fox about how to use their platforms that is effective.”