Sean Hannity used his syndicated talk-radio program Wednesday to share a prediction he had found on Twitter about what is really happening with the coronavirus: It’s a “fraud” by the deep state to spread panic in the populace, manipulate the economy and suppress dissent.
“May be true,” Hannity declared to millions of listeners around the country.
As the coronavirus spreads around the globe, denial and disinformation about the risks are proliferating on media outlets popular with conservatives.
“This coronavirus?” Rush Limbaugh asked skeptically during his Wednesday program. “All of this panic is just not warranted.”
The Fox Business anchor Trish Regan told viewers Monday that the worry over coronavirus “is yet another attempt to impeach the president.”
Where doctors and scientists see a public health crisis, President Donald Trump and his media allies see a political coup afoot.
Even on Wednesday night, after Trump gave an unusually somber address to the nation in which he announced he was suspending all travel from Europe for 30 days, Hannity criticized Democrats and vigorously defended the president’s response to the crisis, saying that when he instituted travel restrictions on China more than a month ago, “no president had ever acted that fast.”
Distorted realities and discarded facts are now such a part of everyday life that the way they shape events like impeachment, a mass shooting or a presidential address often goes unmentioned.
But when partisan news meets a pandemic, the information silos where people shelter themselves can become not just deluded but also dangerous, according to those who criticize conservative commentators for shedding any semblance of objectivity when it comes to covering the president.
“This sort of media spin poses a clear and present danger to public health,” said Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative host and author who published a book, “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” in 2018. “If you have people out there who feel all of this is overblown, and feel the need to act out their lack of concern by not taking precautions, it could be exceptionally dangerous.
“That’s not just a problem for the right wing, that becomes a real threat to the general population,” added Sykes, who is also a contributor to MSNBC. “When people start dying, the entertainment value wears off.”
In the case of Fox News viewers and talk radio listeners, who tend to be older than the general population, the danger of playing down the threat is potentially far worse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has specifically identified older people as being at higher risk from serious complications if they contract the virus. Nielsen, the TV ratings agency, lists the average age of a Fox News viewer as 65 years old.
