@TristanSnell/Twitter, Fox News/YouTube
August 19, 2021, 6:57 am
While Fox News personalities continue to downplay the pandemic, questioning the validity of masks and the helpfulness of vaccines, the company itself has mandated that employees must disclose their vaccination status and wear masks in confined spaces, according to an internal memo leaked to the press.
Featured Video
Hide
The memo appears to have been sent out on August 17, and actually acknowledges the ongoing dangers of COVID and the Delta variant, something that can’t be said of everyone employed by the company to speak to the American people.
It outlines the steps the company is currently taking to prevent the spread in the workplace, including an immediate requirement for employees to enter their vaccination status in a central database, a twice-a-week COVID testing program for “select essential employees” “regardless of vaccination status,” mandatory masking in “small, confined spaces with limited opportunities for social distancing,” and some sort of daily screening that will clear them to go into work every single day.
Advertisement
Hide
Let’s be clear that these are good, active measures that Fox News is taking to ensure the safety of their employees and anyone they may come into contact with.
Many companies continue to take one or more of these steps, and it should help in eventually, maybe, bringing the pandemic to a close.
But what’s egregious is how apparent it is that the higher-ups at Fox making these calls understand perfectly well that the virus is serious, and that masks and vaccines play a role in combatting it, and yet they have spent the past year and a half allowing their hosts and guests to spread misinformation so as to deepen the political chasm in the United States and draw in their rightwing viewers.
Both Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity in particular have repeatedly claimed no one should be allowed to ask about someone’s vaccination status — something that is perfectly legal for employers to do in the U.S.
Advertisement
Hide
In fact, there’s actually an ongoing study drawing a direct link between people watching Fox News and refusing to get vaccinated for COVID.
The hypocrisy isn’t surprising, but it is deeply infuriating, especially when the stakes are so high and there is no scenario where individual choice regarding masks and vaccines don’t have an impact on others.
Advertisement
Hide
Of course, Fox News viewers will never hear about any of this, as many of them continue to refuse to get their news anywhere other than Fox, Newsmax, Facebook, and obscure websites with absolutely no sources or factual information.
*First Published: August 19, 2021, 6:57 am
0 Comments