Fox News hosts have measurable effect on COVID cases, study finds

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Fox News)

One of the more frustrating aspects of the coronavirus pandemic has been the amount of disinformation swirling about. Much of this is politically motivated, perhaps unsurprising with the attention given to President Donald Trump's rambling, error-strewn press conferences. It may seem like commonsense that actively misleading the public during a national emergency has consequences, but now Fox News' two most-watched hosts have unwittingly performed a rather elegant experiment on their viewers that allows us to quantify that effect. The results are stark: greater exposure to Sean Hannity versus Tucker Carlson shows a measurable increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths throughout March and early April.

Hannity and Carlson are Fox News' two biggest stars, each commanding around 4 million viewers for their respective evening shows (Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight). While often it can be hard to see daylight between their ideological pronouncements on-air, in early 2020, the two had markedly different lines on the coronavirus outbreak. Carlson began regularly covering the virus in January. During February, he did so with a growing sense of alarm that the United States could experience a heavy death toll-the same month that saw much inaction on the part of the federal government.

By contrast, Hannity gave the virus almost no attention in February. And when he began to discuss the virus at the same frequency as Carlson during the first two weeks of March, it was to minimize the threat compared to the number of annual deaths attributable to car crashes, shootings, or seasonal influenza. Additionally, Hannity also accused the Democratic Party of exaggerating the threat as a way of attacking the president. However, by mid-March, Hannity changed his tune once President Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency.

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