Fox News is Killing Us: Here are the Receipts

[swag]

https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/fox-news-is-killing-us-here-are-the

Causal evidence of the deadly influence of Fox News on COVID

Don Moynihan

excerpt:

What did researchers find when researchers used this technique to understand the relationship between Fox News and COVID?

A series of sophisticated papers confirm the causal influence of Fox on health behaviors and outcomes. Exposure to Fox News made people less likely to stay at home, more likely to travel, less likely to use hand sanitizer or masks, and more vaccine hesitant.

One paper used a slightly different causal technique to look at variation within Fox News coverage. Hard to believe, but there was a time when Tucker Carlson’s messaging was reasonably responsible compared to Sean Hannity. Researchers exploited this variation through a variety of techniques. They could not use channel placement as a source of exogenous variation in this case, since they were looking at variation within the Fox News channel, so they took a different ingenious approach: using variation in sunset times (with the idea that people watch more TV when its dark, and that in places where sunset is later, people will be exogenously more exposed to more Hannity, which runs later).

The results shows that greater exposure to the less responsible version of Fox messaging was associated with more COVID cases and more deaths.

To sum up, a series of sophisticated analyses show that Fox News is leading viewers to take the COVID less seriously, to skip basic public health measures, to avoid vaccines, and to greater illnesses and deaths. Fox News talking heads are not just asking questions, they are leading their viewers to their demise. And because COVID is a virus, they risks they are persuading their viewers to undertake are shared, unwillingly, with the rest of us.

. . . more

[KPN]

1. I fantasize about a massive class action lawsuit crushing -- no, extinguishing --

Fox News, Murdoch and his big hitters (Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham et al).

This research feeds that fantasy but, alas, fantasies are always fantasies.

[The Wizard]

2. When will Pox

victims sue for damages.

[Mickju]

3. They don't know they are victims.

Like my sister

[The Wizard]

4. unwitting rubes and dupes.

Barnum was right.

[markpkessinger]

5. I have to question one technique described in the article . . .

From the article:

A standard technique at estimating the causal effect of Fox News is to look at channel positioning. The idea is that the placement of channels is random, but that people tend to watch more of channels placed earlier on the dial, all else equal.

Most people these days don't have their channels arrayed on a dial, so I question whether this idea is a valid assumption. That doesn't discredit the other techniques described, however.

[Stuart G]

6. I guess Fox figured out an old truth.""..A BIG LIE, IS BETTER THAN A SMALL ONE""

nOW LETS THINK, WHO CAME UP WITH THAT ONE?

i WONDER??

YES... i DO KNOW........................DO YOU??............ ?