This is the second time in less than a week that news media have tried to pin coronavirus deaths on Fox News.
“A disturbing new study suggests Sean Hannity helped spread the coronavirus,” Vox reports.
The “study,” by the way, is a working paper, meaning it has not been peer-reviewed, published recently by the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics. The paper is titled “Misinformation During a Pandemic.”
Newsweek went with this: “Coronavirus deaths greater among Fox News viewers that prefer Hannity over Tucker Carlson, study says.”
“Study Shows Areas Where Hannity Reigns Over Carlson Had Worse Coronavirus Outbreaks; Fox News Slams Findings As ‘Reckless,’” said a Forbes headline.
The Chicago Tribune reports, “Coronavirus deaths greater where Fox News viewers watched ‘Hannity’ more than Tucker Carlson, says U. of C. study.”
As any statistician or mere undergraduate student of logic can tell you, correlation does not imply causation. It is remarkable that these headlines were written without any consideration for this fact.
Did anyone consider that older people, who are thus more susceptible to the virus, are also more likely to watch Hannity, whose program is aired by a network where the median age for viewership is 65? New York is a very left-wing city, and also by far the hardest-hit in terms of coronavirus infections and deaths. Should we conclude that liberal political views cause coronavirus to spread? Of course not. Yet, the study takes that same logic to Fox News.
Unless the researchers have definitive evidence linking Fox News to coronavirus deaths, such as definitive statements from victims that Hannity inspired them to go out and take unnecessary risks, they cannot responsibly tie the one to the other. Perhaps that is why the authors of the paper write, “We urge caution in interpreting our estimated effects on cases” given “potential data limitations.” Then again, if they had really been worried about this, they would not have published this sloppy, half-baked mess.
Their study makes no mention of the other news anchors and commentators who were similarly dismissive of the virus during the early days of the outbreak. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, for example, was still likening the virus to the common flu as late as March 4. The research paper does not mention the risks to his viewers. It also does not mention any of the many commentaries and news headlines published in January or February downplaying the seriousness of the virus. Don’t count on Vox, in covering this study, to acknowledge its own dismissal of the virus, which it even deleted from Twitter to spare itself the embarrassment.
For that matter, the research paper makes no mention of the public officials who, in February and even mid-March, were still urging people to go to mass gatherings. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, encouraged her constituents on Feb. 24 to visit San Francisco’s Chinatown district. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, encouraged New Yorkers as late as March 11 to go on about their lives as usual. Neither Pelosi nor de Blasio is mentioned in the study.
In contrast, Hannity, on Feb. 25, promoted a “dire warning” that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued that day “about the deadly coronavirus.” Hannity said on Feb. 26 of the virus, “It’s the type of thing you want to be prepared, you want to be ready.” He said on Feb. 27 that the virus is “dangerous, “tragic,” and “serious.” It may be true that Hannity took this up later than Carlson, who was ahead of pretty much everyone in the media. But is there some reason to believe that Hannity’s warnings, in contrast to Cooper’s downplaying of the virus, somehow made it more likely to spread?
Fox News, for its part, disputes the paper’s findings.
“The selective cherry-picked clips of Sean Hannity’s coverage used in this study are not only reckless and irresponsible but downright factually wrong,” a spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “Hannity has covered COVID-19 since the early days of the story.”
The spokesperson adds, “The ‘study’ almost completely ignores his coverage and repeated, specific warnings and concerns from Jan. 27–Feb. 26, including an early interview with Dr. [Anthony Fauci] in January. This is a reckless disregard for the truth.”
Perhaps as frustrating as the research paper itself is the fact that nearly every news media outlet promoting it also downplayed the coronavirus to some degree in January and February. Today, however, they find some kind of grim satisfaction in ganging up on Fox News, perhaps as a way of assuaging their own guilt.
It is unclear who should be more embarrassed: the authors of the working paper or the news outlets promoting it.
