Back in January and February, Fox News’ coverage of the coronavirus pandemic often downplayed the severity of the virus and claimed that Democrats, liberals and the mainstream media were exaggerating the dangers as a way of attacking President Donald Trump. Critics of Fox News, however, are divided on what is and isn’t an appropriate response to its abysmal coverage of the pandemic: some view Fox News’ coronavirus coverage as appalling but constitutionally protected speech, while others are asserting that lawsuits are appropriate. And journalist Caleb Ecarma, this week in Vanity Fair, reports that Fox News’ legal department is ready to go to battle if necessary.
Coronavirus was hardly the “hoax” that Trump and Fox News claimed it was. According to researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, the pandemic has killed more than 76,300 people worldwide and more than 10,900 in the United States alone (as of early Tuesday morning, April 7). In other words, MSNBC and CNN’s coverage of the dangers that coronavirus posed were much more accurate than what Fox News hosts Trish Regan, Sean Hannity, etc. claimed. And Ecarma notes that the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) has filed a “consumer protection complaint” naming Fox News and others as defendants. The lawsuit asserts that the “defendants acted in bad faith to willfully and maliciously disseminate false information denying and minimizing the danger posed by the spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, which is now recognized as an international pandemic.”
WASHLITE’s Arthur West told the Times of San Diego, “That’s the real evil of this type of programming. We believe it delayed and interfered with a prompt and adequate response to this coronavirus pandemic.” Continue reading.
Meanwhile, health care workers treating coronavirus patients don’t have enough masks, and officials are turning to the black market.