Chris Hayes: Murdoch owned media has “waged a war against public health” during pandemic
Hayes: “They’ve been playing down the virus and peddling just outright lies, and pushing junk science”
Published
Citation From the December 18, 2020, edition of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes
CHRIS HAYES (HOST): For the past nine months or so, Rupert Murdoch-owned media entities have by and large waged a war against public health and the scientific consensus on containing the coronavirus.
On Fox News and elsewhere, they've been playing down the virus and peddling just outright lies, and pushing junk science and elevating cranks, all of which has tangibly, materially contributed to behavior that has made the pandemic worse.
And what makes it all the more infuriating is that, as we have noted, while Fox hosts have been dismissing the experts and suggesting that lockdowns don't work and ridiculing people that avoid the office, and follow public health guidelines, many Fox News employees have been working remotely, literally at the same time.
And so, now, we arrive at the question of the vaccine. And last night, one of Rupert Murdoch's minions went on air to coyly just ask questions, and rail against the offensive pro-vaccine propaganda that's been propagated by all corners of the media, and the elite consensus that you should get the vaccine.
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Of course, no one is actually telling you what to do. The vaccine is voluntary. In fact, that's literally the reason there is a public relations push to get people to vaccinate, to get vaccinated -- to persuade them in a free country, precisely because it's not legally required.
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But of course, all this contrarian posturing is just chum thrown in the water for ratings they can then monetize. It's not meant to be real or serious advice. In fact, Fox News's own lawyers have argued that this particular Rupert Murdoch minion is not a provider of the news as we know it, or facts as we commonly understand them, and his audience knows this. Just a remarkable thing for your own attorney to say about you.
And so, given all that context, it is not surprising that 89-year-old Rupert Murdoch himself, who of course, at that age is high risk, took a convoy of Range Rovers to get his vaccine on Wednesday, via the British National Health Service, the socialized medicine provider of the U.K.
Murdoch even thanked essential workers and the staff of the National Health Service, an institution that is held up as this absolutely demonic specter by Fox News in American healthcare debates, and Murdoch also strongly encouraged people around the world to get the vaccine. Precisely the kind of group think tyrannical propaganda his network was railing against.