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New study says Fox News is responsible for low vaccine rates

Published on 28 Comments on New study says Fox News is responsible for low vaccine rates

In news that should surprise no one, a team of researchers has concluded that vaccination rates are lower in areas with higher viewership of Fox News:

There are all the usual confounders to deal with here—Fox viewers also tend to be Republican, non-urban, older, etc.—but the authors claim the vaccine effect they isolated is truly due to watching Fox News:

We can verify that this association is causal using exogenous geographical variation in the channel lineup....We can rule out that the effect is due to differences in partisanship, to local health policies, or to local COVID-19 infections or death rates.

For those who don't want to read the paper (i.e., all of you) one of the authors has written a Twitter thread breaking down the main results of their study. You can read it here.

28 thoughts on “New study says Fox News is responsible for low vaccine rates”

  1. KinersKorner

    Guess the Faux Dopes read it today. The midday show with the midday Twits were all pro Vax. First time I heard it. As I suffer listening to their idiocy every day.

      1. Clyde Schechter

        I don't know what KinersKorner's circumstances are but, for example, maybe he works in a gym or a bar where the TVs are running Fox all day and he is not allowed to turn it off or change the channel--the customer is, after all, always right!

        1. KinersKorner

          I work with a few idiots who love to grieve. Just went back to the office so to express my desires without starting a civil war will take a little finesse. Getting there!

        2. Martin Stett

          Owner/manager wants it on. Years ago I went into an old paperback store. Old guy behind the counter was smoking and listening to Limbaugh. Got out as fast as I could find they didn't have what I wanted, but the cigarette smell seemed to last all the way home. The smell of dead-end losers.

  2. Spadesofgrey

    What low vaccination rates??? White's are nearing 80% in one shot vaccine intake. Your telling me Black and Brown anti-vaxxers watch Fox News??? Education is the biggest factor. Period. Progressive liberals need to get over cases vs actual illness. In 6 months just about all people of Indo European and Asiatic descent 18+ have vaccinated 80%. That is pretty amazing. Whining about low population, low post HS educated rural counties is lolz dumb. You may as well complain about new age Hippies, who are the most educated segment who won't take the vaccine.

  3. rick_jones

    The Law of the Seven Cs:
    Correlation in Confirmation is Cause
    Correlation in Contradiction is Coincidence
    Clearly…

  4. Salamander

    Haven't the courts decided that there's no requirement for "the news" to be factual, in any way? I think it was "the Fox News decision."

    1. Mitch Guthman

      Not exactly. If memory serves, a trial court judge accepted the opinion defense in a suit against Tucker Carlson. The gap in their defense was that Tucker didn’t describe the “facts” upon which his opinion was based and he seemed to be implying that he knew things. To fill that gap, Fox News basically claimed that no one would consider Tucker to be credible and any rational viewer would know that he’s just a clown who was pulling his “facts” out of his ass.

      I think the case is still on appeal. Also, the decision presumably wouldn’t apply to Fox’s “news” programs and personalities.

        1. Mitch Guthman

          I’m trying to find out if the case is on appeal. It’s a tricky area of first amendment law but I think the court stretched the concept of opinion way too far. I don’t think this would be upheld.

  5. Justin

    This is funny. Sorry. I just can’t be bothered to give a care about these idiots. Good riddance.

    “When I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same,” she wrote on Facebook.

    “They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t.”

    https://nypost.com/2021/07/21/its-too-late-doctor-forced-to-turn-down-covid-patients-begging-for-vaccine/

    Flipping idiots.

    1. Martin Stett

      Trouble is, they're driving people like the good doctor who write that into a future of PTSD and worse.

  6. chester

    The hospital deathbed descriptions are rather similar to the DUI ads where the driver rues drinking and then killing , maiming, and destroying things but now wants to go back in time to do things right. Call a ride or get the shot, decisions that work out better for everyone. I still feel sorry for all involved in both situations. There are so many situations where making needed change is really hard, like with addiction or for domestic violence. Getting a shot is not one of those. Like the Joe Namath ad "it's free!"

  7. D_Ohrk_E1

    There has been a rush of conservatives reversing themselves, coming out vocally in support of vaccines these past few days.

    Naturally, one has to wonder why now?

    Could it be that they got eye-popping numbers from data showing their partisan voters were far behind in vaccines and getting sick at very high rates compared to Democrats and liberals, specifically?

    After all, it'd be hard to win midterm elections if your supporters were either dead or angry at you for lying to them.

    1. Mitch Guthman

      It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on. It’s true that only the base of the Republican Party and a fairly small number of oddballs are really buying all of this. But then the basic strategy of the Republicans for decades has been to emphasize the cultural and tribal grievances of some white people at the tangible expense of that same group. It’s the phenomenon “what’s the matter with Kansas”.

      Certainly many of the MAGA base and their families will die horrible agonizing deaths but not so many as to cost the party even a single congressional district. And the party leaders and Fox News hasn’t called off the jihad against public health measures; neither have red states like South Dakota or Florida or Tennessee begun to expand vaccine outreach programs.

      And, on the whole, because the American political system apportions power on the basis of land mass and because the GOP retains power through tricks like voter suppression and gerrymandering, it really doesn’t matter how sparsely populated any political subdivision might be. As a practical matter, I don’t believe there’s many states apart from Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and the like in which the Republicans wins the support of a majority of potentially eligible voters.

      You might be right but I think there’s something else going on here. I just don’t know what.

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        It's the purple congressional districts where the small margins matter.

        Republicans were operating on the historical record of the minority taking back control during midterms. Now, it seems a lot less certain with the infection ratio between Rs and Ds at 10:1 and the mortality ratio at 100:1, in these districts where each vote holds greater weight.

        And then, in purple states, Rs will get all the blame for entire families and communities being wiped out. At some point when ICU beds are fully occupied, the quality of care will go down significantly.

          1. jakejjj

            ^ Sorry to bring up "wages." You're rich, and laugh at us. Trust me on this, the message is getting through. Your arrogant racism is written in neon on your faces. Both sides of them. LOL

            The Latinx

        2. jakejjj

          Um, "progressive," I live in a "swing" district. You live in one represented by a member of Black Looters Matter. You know NOTHING about "swing districts." Ours has a substantial Latino population, and your "Latinx" bullshit is quite a topic among us. You're a racist who couldn't speak Spanish if your worthless "progressive" life depended on it, so you'll just have to wait for the bad news. LOL

          Oh, and do you think that Latinos whose families fled the narcos want your drug friends here? Do you think that the Latinos employed in restaurants and construction are looking for Anglo "progressive" racists to undercut our wages? Are you actually that fucking stupid? LOL

          Cordially,

          The Latinx

  8. illilillili

    > (i.e., all of you)
    I'm pretty sure one or two of the regular readers also regularly read the papers you link to.

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