Skip to main content

Trending

  • Fox/Dominion Lawsuit
  • Meta
  • Twitter

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Utility Navigation

  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Media Matters for America

Main navigation

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Media Matters for America

  • Nav
  • Search

Main navigation

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Trending

  • Fox/Dominion Lawsuit
  • Meta
  • Twitter

Utility Navigation

  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Lachlan-Murdoch-wants-fox-news-critics-more-tolerant.png

Fox News boss Lachlan Murdoch supports Tucker Carlson’s misinformation against the COVID-19 vaccines

Written by Eric Kleefeld

Published 05/19/21 4:58 PM EDT

Share

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print

Comment

  • Comments

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch has publicly endorsed a debunked conspiracy theory spread by Fox News prime time host Tucker Carlson, who has claimed that thousands of people died in connection with the COVID-19 vaccines.

Carlson has increasingly become the network’s top personality on TV and to push its online content, and he has used the platform to undermine the public vaccination campaign ever since last year. Other network figures have gotten their shots — most notably Fox News founder and Lachlan’s father Rupert Murdoch — while the network has continually taken pandemic health measures more seriously for itself than for its audiences. (Carlson has still not disclosed whether he has been vaccinated.)

For this latest example, Carlson has relied on a public system known as VAERS, or the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, to which anybody can submit a report of health events. False claims surrounding the unverified database had been spreading for months online, from the likes of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr., frequent Fox News guest Alex Berenson, and prominent influencers in the far-right QAnon movement.

However, the system does not include any key context of what other factors might have contributed to an individual’s negative health events, and because it is publicly sourced it can include many errors. (For example, a report that a 2-year-old died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine during clinical trials has been removed from the VAERS system for being “completely made up” — as vaccine trials for young children had not even begun yet when the report was filed.)

But when these problems were widely pointed out, Carlson only dug in further, asking, “What exactly are the real numbers? How much harm have the COVID vaccines caused?”

Video file

Citation From the May 6, 2021, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight

In an interview with Business Insider, Lachlan Murdoch stood by Carlson’s falsehoods:

Lachlan called Carlson and some of his viewpoints, which he says caters to what many Americans are quietly thinking, “brave.” And when Carlson questioned the efficacy of vaccines for COVID-19 and cited the number of people who died after taking the vaccine, Lachlan came to his defense again.

“He basically just went into the CDC data, right?” Lachlan said.  “So there's nothing the CDC itself isn't saying.”

Business Insider noted that “Factcheck.org denounced Carlson's statement, explaining that anyone can submit a report of an adverse side effect following vaccination, without verification or proof that it was caused by the vaccine.”

FactCheck.org listed some examples, as well:

Another report included in Carlson’s count was for a woman who was vaccinated on Jan. 9, had a car accident two weeks later, and died with a brain hemorrhage nine days after that.

Another report was for a 17-year-old who killed himself with a gun eight days after he was vaccinated.

This doesn’t mean that no deaths could be related to the vaccines. But these examples make it clear that “VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine,” as the Department of Health and Human Services explains.

And while Lachlan Murdoch characterizes the VAERS reports as “CDC data,” a disclaimer on the VAERS site actually makes clear: “The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable” — which, come to think of it, would be a better slogan for Fox News.

The Latest

  1. On Elon Musk’s Twitter, a reinstated QAnon influencer launched a conspiracy theory that left a company facing false pedophilia accusations

    Article 03/28/23 11:29 AM EDT

  2. Daily Wire's Michael Knowles says “guns have nothing to do with” Nashville shooting

    Video & Audio 03/28/23 11:22 AM EDT

  3. Fox guest suggests we can't ban assault weapons because the government is untrustworthy

    Video & Audio 03/28/23 10:24 AM EDT

  4. Fox News abruptly cuts off Donald Trump as he's criticizing Ron DeSantis for “voting against social security, voting against Medicare”

    Video & Audio 03/27/23 10:23 PM EDT

  5. Fox News guest blames “defund the police” for shooting at Tennessee school

    Video & Audio 03/27/23 5:26 PM EDT

Pagination

  • Current page 1
  • …
  • Next page ››

In This Article

  • Lachlan Murdoch

    Lachlan-Murdoch-MMFA-Tag.png
  • Tucker Carlson

    Tucker-Carlson-MMFA-Tag.png
  • QAnon Conspiracy Theory

    QAnon-Conspiracy-Theory-MMFA-Tag.png
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)

    Covid-19 / Coronavirus
  • Fox News

    Fox-News-MMFA-Tag.png
Comments
0 Comments
Share Count
0 Shares

Related

  1. Fox guest suggests we can't ban assault weapons because the government is untrustworthy

    Video & Audio 03/28/23 10:24 AM EDT

  2. On Elon Musk’s Twitter, a reinstated QAnon influencer launched a conspiracy theory that left a company facing false pedophilia accusations

    Article 03/28/23 11:29 AM EDT

  3. BlazeTV host Steve Deace: If COVID-19 vaccines weren't “a purposeful depopulation scheme ... what behavior would they have done differently, if it is one?”

    Video & Audio 03/27/23 2:56 PM EDT

Media Matters for America

Sign up for email updates

Footer menu

  • About
  • Contact
  • Corrections
  • Submissions
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

© 2023 Media Matters for America