Rightwing Media Spreading Epidemic of Misinformation

April 27th 2020

Tucker Carlson - Caricature (DonkeyHotey)

By Bill Berkowitz 

Over the past few weeks, right-wing media outlets have been fueling protests – albeit small – in several states against social distancing restrictions and the shutdown of businesses. Fox News and an assortment of other large and small conservative media outlets are encouraging and supporting these demonstrations. According to Media Matters for America’s Alex Walker, conservative radio talk show hosts in Virginia, Michigan, Utah, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada have vigorously promoted protests. 

Underpinning these demonstrations – many organized by well-funded conservative individuals and organizations – is the right-wing media’s unrelenting support for all things Donald Trump. Trump once boasted that he could shoot someone on the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Now, the question is whether Trump can maintain the unwavering loyalty of his base in the midst of his administration’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic that has already killed more than 50,000 people.

The answer to that question is revealed almost everyday at right-wing media outlets. As the Columbia Journalism Review’s Howard Polskin recently pointed out after monitoring those outlets, “a large segment of the population was enduring an epidemic of misinformation.”

Rightwing columnists are having their say, and right-wing television blowhards are polluting the airwaves nightly – that’s you Tucker, Sean and Laura – and right-wing radio talk show hosts – think Rushbo – talk their way into and out of pretzel-ed reasoning, while conservative pastors invite parishioners into their churches sans social distancing measures, and some, like Pat Robertson, have even taken to blaming the pandemic on same-sex marriage. Rightwing websites are having a field day spreading Trump’s misinformation and disinformation, and, while they’re at it, they are creating a barrage of their own.

Oddly enough, Michael Savage, a longtime influential conservative radio talk show host, has not beein lock step. He has blasted “the pimps,” “intellectual dwarfs” and “science illiterates” in the right-wing media “who tell you what you want to hear”. While Savage, who has a Ph.D. and training in epidemiology, hasn’t lost his fervor for attacking Democrats – Nancy Pelosi in particular – and the #MeToo movement, he has split with his conservative brethren around truth-telling regarding the coronavirus.  He’s mockingly taken to calling Fox News’ Sean Hannity “Dr. Hannity” and “Rush Limbaugh, M.D., Ph.D.” And while Savage criticized the suggestion that hydroxychloroquine would be an effective treatment for coronavirus, he hasn’t directly criticized Trump for his mishandling of the crisis. 

But, who needs Savage when there are so many other conservative outlets spreading lies and misinformation. Feeds on most rightwing websites -- many of which I have never visited -- are “characterized by faulty projections, inflammatory anti-Chinese rhetoric, and over-the-top praise for President Trump,” Polskin wrote. 

Polskin outlined seven distinct categories of media disinformation: “Denial,” “It’s getting better all the time,” “Trump praise,” “China scorn,” “The cure is worse then the disease,” “Bashing the rest of the media,”  and “Bashing Democrats.” 

The denialists have followed Trump’s initial lead in talking about COVID-19 as if it were the seasonal flu. Rush Limbaugh called coronavirus “the common cold.” 

on his February 24 program, 

As the coronavirus began to spread, the “It’s getting better all the time” crowd “shifted to ‘it’s not so bad and it won’t last too long.’ American Thinker’s March 9 story ‘Coronavirus Codswallop’ [British slang for senseless talk or writing; nonsense; rubbish] stated that the statistics about the pandemic ‘should be taken with a grain of salt.’ A day earlier, the New York Post told its readers that ‘the spread of the virus continues to slow.’ Dr. William Hazeltine, writing for FoxNews.com on March 21, predicted that the pandemic may end sooner than we expect.”

These sites offer reflexive praise for Trump even when his poor understanding of facts and lack of empathy have turned his daily coronavirus press briefings into the “Trump Show.” The Daily Caller has been trapped in the Trump bubble, calling his much-criticized press briefing of February 27, a “master class in crisis management.” A few days later, an opinion piece in The Daily Caller boldly stated that Trump “has got the coronavirus situation completely under control.” 

Polskin wrote that on March 20, Christian leader Franklin Graham told CNS News: “Thank God we have a president who knows how to take charge.” Then there was Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara, who in late March, wrote an op-ed for FoxNews.com that read: “My father-in-law, President Trump, is showing what leadership looks like in a time of crisis.”

China scorn took the spotlight for a time, as rightwing journalists kept calling COVID-19 the :China coronavirus” or “Wuhan virus.” These reporters were apparently oblivious to the fact that whipping up China blame was also fanning an upward spiraling of hate crimes against Asian Americans.

The economic impact of the coronavirus is undeniable. This led to the old meme “The cure is worse than the disease.” While tens of thousands of Americans are getting sick and thousands are dying, rightwing outlets are calling for a return to normalcy. “A number of media outlets voiced this perspective, including the Washington Times, The Federalist, and BernardGoldberg.com,” Polskin noted. “The Epoch Times expressed a similar concern and added, ‘For a disease that so far has extracted a relatively small death toll and from which a quarter of those infected have already recovered, why are we reacting as if Covid-19 is the second coming of the Black Death?’”

“My message: let’s get back to work, let’s get back to living, let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves,” Dan Patrick, the Texas lieutenant governor, said on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.

Media bashing is a regular feature of Trump’s press rallies. And trashing Democrats for distracting Trump with impeachment from what otherwise would surely have been an early focus on Covid-19 has also been a regular feature on right-wing sites. 

“We’re living in a terrible time in America where truth has died,” Michael Savage, an early supporter of Trump’s run for the presidency, told his audience. “This is crazy. How can we not let our side be called on the carpet when they lie to the people?”