On MSNBC, Dean Obeidallah explains why he filed a FTC report about Fox News' vaccine misinformation
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From the July 22, 2021, edition of MSNBC's The ReidOut
JONATHAN CAPEHART (GUEST HOST): Dean, one of the purveyors of misinformation and disinformation is Fox News. That Lincoln project ad is pretty devastating in sort of calling out the hypocrisy. But you're doing more than that, Dean. You wrote for MSNBC yesterday: "Fox News' Covid vaccine denials can't go unpunished. I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday. Here's hoping it moves forward." Talk about why did you file that complaint with the FTC? What's your goal?
DEAN OBEIDALLAH (GUEST): Because I'm tired of screaming at my television set Jonathan. Or screaming on my radio show about something needs to be done. So I'm a lawyer. I did research over the weekend. I saw the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act which was passed in December under the auspice of the FTC. It seemed like the perfect fit. This new law is to protect people, the public, consumers from people peddling misinformation for profit about COVID, about the cures, about mitigation practices, and that's what Fox News has been doing. You know, Media Matters did a great job quantifying about the last two weeks. Nearly 57% of the segments Fox News did on COVID, which is over 120 plus, nearly 57% were to convince you not to get the vaccine through telling you they're coming to take your freedoms to actually lying about the vaccine and being dangerous. And, you know, we can debate all day why Fox News does it. Is it to hurt Joe Biden? Is it somehow to make their base who watch the shows angry? We can all agree on this, Jonathan. This is a big company, made $1.5 billion last year in revenue. This is a business decision by the network.