Angelo Carusone: Fox hosts submit to Fox News’ vaccine mandate and then “don’t just lie about the vaccine, but they encourage people to get sick”
Published
Angelo Carusone: Fox hosts submit to Fox News’ vaccine mandate and then “don’t just lie about the vaccine, but they encourage people to get sick”
Citation
From the February 4, 2022, edition of Sirius XM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
DEAN OBEIDALLAH (HOST): This was a really great story about -- Fox News celebrated anti-vax heroes as they like to call them, and one was Robert LaMay. Robert LaMay was a former Washington State trooper who, when he quit in the fall, did a video that while "Governor Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor, you can kiss my ass," and Fox News basically makes him a hero in all this. Well, Robert LaMay sadly died of COVID over the weekend.
ANGELO CARUSONE: Yes.
OBEIDALLAH: Tell us, how did Fox News react to the death of someone they had made a hero? Did they did a whole remembrance? A solemn thing? We lost Robert LaMay? Tell us about what -- what they really did.
CARUSONE: They didn't cover it. You know, while he was doing this, Fox, you know, they hosted him, they lionized him. They ran segments about it, encouraging others to do the same, basically. So they -- this was not like just a passing mention one time on their network.
You know, they did a lot of work around this. I mean, this was the thing that was important to them because it helped tell a story that -- the broader narrative. And you know, it's obviously it's a trooper, so it fits in with the, you know, what they say is their support of police.
So, you know, when he died, you'd think that they would have done a segment about it, and they didn't.
And they haven't talked about it, they've ignored it, like, as if it didn't happen. And even though it's gotten attention right by virtue of the fact that people notice that they still haven't. And they haven't even reported on it. You know, they wrote one very, very dry Fox article that didn't even get into their own role in why they were even covering his death in the first place.
Like, part of the reason he became a national figure was because they had done so much to elevate his story. And it is a real disservice because, you know, people are, you know, his family is now -- like many people who have died of COVID, they lost their father, they lost their husband. Like, it's a thing.
And it's, you know, they run, you know, there's a there's a fundraiser now for the family. I saw Lawrence O'Donnell the other night had donated to it. But you know, Fox always promotes fundraisers for four people, especially when they, you know, when it fits their agenda. Nothing, you know, they never even gave it the tiniest passing mention. So it is -- it's a real, sad thing. It actually is -- it's a real -- it's sad. The whole thing is just kind of sad, and it does show a unique level of malevolence on their part.
OBEIDALLAH: And as one of your reporters in Media Matters noted on Monday, because Robert LaMay died over the weekend on Monday, not only they didn't cover it, they did segments celebrating other heroes of the anti-vax movement. You know, they literally are killing people.
CARUSONE: Yes.
...
I mean, they're basically they're at this point, especially as a really, if you put put aside their political coverage, you just look at their COVID related coverage for the last three years, they're pretty much the tobacco industry. In terms of like how they're approaching it, they're like, "That is good for you. You should smoke. It is awesome. And like, just do it." They know better, right? Like they're burying all the information and bury information that's contrary or they actively work to undermine it. I don't think it's coincidence that they ran a package and emphasized heroes of the anti-vax movement at the same time that this LaMay story is breaking because they have to give their audience something else to, to point to and to deflect and distract and to not let people think about that. And you know, that is -- that is a part of this. I mean, Murdoch was -- he was one of the first people in line to get the vaccine. Rupert Murdoch was one of the first people in the world to get the vaccine, literally first in line. He was -- it was very important for him to get the vaccine ahead of everybody else. They know better. They all know better. Their own policies at their company reinforce that they know better and they go out there every day and don't just lie about the vaccine, but they encourage people to get sick.