Beginning in late January, scientists began loudly ringing the alarm about COVID-19 and began predicting dire scenarios that were moving toward the U.S. like a slow-moving tidal wave. My colleague Mark Sumner wrote extensively for this site about the virus and his warnings and advice put many members of the community on better footing to be prepared for extensive social distancing.
While those of us in the science-based world began making preparations and informing our friends and family, those who watch Fox News were getting a different message, one that echoed Donald Trump. In all fairness, it’s hard to tell which came first, the chickenshit president’s messaging or the eggheads at Fox News, but like all Republican messaging, they were feeding off each other.
From the morning show to primetime Hannity, the hosts at Fox News dismissed the threat, a threat that is particularly aimed at the older viewers watching Fox News. And then the markets tanked. And then the cases kept mounting. And then the CDC warnings weren’t just a distant “hoax,” people were getting sick and people were dying. Fox News was unable to ignore or deflect the crisis in front of us. The tidal wave was crashing ashore whether they liked it or not. Especially after two reports became public, both showing the real advice that national leaders in both the U.S. and U.K. are getting behind the scenes: SHUT IT ALL DOWN.
And with that, a switch flipped, both in the administration and on Fox News. The Washington Post spliced the contrasting commentary together to show just how starkly different the coverage was from roughly a 10-day period this month. Watch and then jump below to see how and why they’ve likely cost lives.
On one hand, hats off to Fox News for finally doing the right thing and informing their audience of the dangers lurking, well, everywhere. But did they get the message out too late? To show how damaging the misinformation at Fox News has been, check out these polling numbers on who is worried about the coronavirus and who is not:
Donald Trump signs an executive order at The Villages in October 2019.
Again, this cannot be emphasized enough—this is not simply differing opinions, this is life or death for the Fox News audience and the rest of us. One of the communities that should’ve been ahead of the curve and bracing for the worst is America’s largest retirement community, The Villages in central Florida. With more than 51,000 residents, the 55-and-over retirement community was the fastest growing community in the entire United States in 2019. Plans for an additional 49,000 homes are currently underway.
The Villages residents are so important to the Republican stranglehold on Florida (and the nation via the Electoral College) that it is a regular stop for those aspiring to the White House. Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-1 in the community. Sarah Palin was a frequent visitor in 2008 and Donald Trump held a huge event there in October to sign an executive order relating to Medicare. It was masquerading as an official White House event, but was clearly a 2020 campaign device to win over or keep this demographic going into 2020.
And yet, this community was largely carrying on business as usual over the last several weeks. Reporters from The Washington Post interviewed residents of The Villages last week and many weren’t concerned about the virus, still holding large social gatherings, still giving firm handshakes, and joking about the virus threat being overblown.
At the end of the day, the network that has been amplifying the “fake news” message from Donald Trump may have been the source of the worst kind of fake news imaginable, one that may very well end up costing their own audience their very lives. Let’s just hope the residents at The Villages and other Fox News-friendly communities like it finally got the message and will begin to heed the advice and warnings of the experts.
