Despite Fox News’ public-relations campaign to rebrand its poor vaccine coverage, its reporting has worsened: In a six-week period from June 28 through August 8, Media Matters found that nearly 60% of the network’s vaccine segments included claims undermining or downplaying vaccinations.
The new findings represent a slight increase over our previous study, which demonstrated that 57% of Fox News’ coronavirus vaccine segments from June 28 through July 11 included statements that undercut immunization efforts.
In the two weeks following that prior study period, from July 12 through 25 (a period which coincided with Fox PR’s disingenuous efforts to whitewash its terrible vaccine coverage), we observed a minor drop in vaccine segments including negative claims, from 57% to 53%; however, in the next two weeks, July 26 through August 8, the percentage including such statements ramped up to 63% of all vaccine segments.
Fox’s continued undermining of immunization efforts is particularly harmful given the nationwide surge in cases and deaths among those who have not received a COVID-19 vaccination. While agencies have detected some breakthrough cases, the vaccines have been extremely successful at significantly reducing deaths and hospitalizations from the contagious delta variant; however, ICUs have once again been pushed to their limits as hospital beds fill up with unvaccinated individuals.
