Opinion: Tucker Carlson's vaccine rant should be called out by every reputable news organization
The First Amendment offers wide protection for free speech in America. But that right to express an opinion is not unlimited. Everyone knows you can't run into a crowded theater and yell fire. There are also long-established limits on what you can lawfully say and write about individuals and organizations.
During a deadly pandemic, spreading disinformation about the novel coronavirus is the equivalent of yelling fire in that crowded theater. The result is the same: it puts people's lives at risk. Yet, over the last nine months, Fox News has done everything in its power to discourage the behavior needed to mitigate the risk of contracting the virus. And now, as cases in the US exceed 17 million, Fox News -- with Tucker Carlson being one of the chief carnival barkers on this one -- is fanning the flames of skepticism around the Covid-19 vaccine.
Carlson openly encouraged people to be suspicious of what he described as the "glitzy" vaccine rollout on Thursday and went on to say, "So, how are the rest of us supposed to respond to a marketing campaign like this? Well, nervously. Even if you're strongly supportive of vaccines, and we are, even if you recognize how many millions of lives have been saved over the past 50 years by vaccines, and we do, it all seems a bit much. It feels false, because it is. It's too slick."
The miracle of developing vaccines on such a short timetable will not lead to any miraculous results unless a large percentage of Americans, and people around the world, gets vaccinated.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/opinion-tucker-carlsons-vaccine-rant-should-be-called-out-by-every-reputable-news-organization/ar-BB1c3zXd?li=BBnb7Kz
= new reply since forum marked as read
