After an anti-vaccine mob attempted to storm into the Barclays Center basketball arena in New York over the weekend in support of benched Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving for his refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccines, Fox News gave the story positive coverage Monday morning — despite the obvious fact that such militant defiance of pandemic health measures would not be welcomed within Fox’s own walls.
“There's so many great people who feel the same way about the vaccine, on all different education, all different backgrounds; they just are not being listened to,” Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade told rally organizer John Matland. “John, thanks for standing up, appreciate what you're doing.”
Fox News has for months levied outlandish attacks against vaccine mandates, with the network’s personalities and guests suggesting vaccine mandates and testing requirements for the unvaccinated are akin to Jim Crow laws, apartheid, eugenics, and forced sterilization and are the products of “small-minded control freaks.”
At the same time, however, Fox News has implemented for itself a stringent program of vaccination and testing requirements: All employees are required to report their vaccination status, with those who are not vaccinated being required to get tested every day. (Reportedly, over 90% of Fox News’ full-time employees are vaccinated.) In addition, masks are still required in close quarters such as control rooms, regardless of vaccination status.