Exposure to Laura Ingraham may be dangerous, new study on COVID-19 misinformation suggests
What: A new study about coronavirus misinformation on Fox News, and one show in particular.
Who: Prominent media watchdog organization Media Matters for America.
Why we care: TV is dangerous. Not in the way of Poltergeist, in which TV is the membrane separating suburbanites from the ghost dimension, but also not entirely not like that.
Last month, a study revealed how Fox News star Sean Hannity’s viewers were more likely to have doubted the pandemic’s severity back in March, to the detriment of their health. Although Hannity is still out there, putting in the hard work to minimize this administration’s culpability in the virus’s seemingly unstoppable spread, another Fox News personality has taken on the mantle of chief misinformation spreader: Laura Ingraham.
According to a new study from Media Matters for America, of the 253 times Fox News delivered coronavirus misinformation in a recent week, a quarter came from The Ingraham Angle. The pugilistic pundit’s prime-time show apparently offered 63 instances of coronavirus misinformation during the week of July 6, dwarfing any other show on the top-rated cable news station. “Ingraham herself pushed coronavirus misinformation 38 times,” the study reads, “which included 21 instances of undermining and misrepresenting the science on the coronavirus and 13 instances of politicizing the response to the pandemic.”
Perhaps this is the type of behavior one should expect from a TV personality who doesn’t seem to know that Toronto is not located in the United States.
Will Joe Biden do more to protect religious liberty than Donald Trump? Not a prayer. “City of Toronto Bans Catholic Churches From Administering Holy Communion” https://t.co/9oR3YI7Zkf
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) July 17, 2020
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