Fox News has become a "misinformation superspreading event"

The Washington Post

Even after Fox & Friends discussed The Washington Post debunking the fake Kamala Harris story that her books were being handed out to migrant children, the hosts continued talking on Tuesday morning as if the story was true. This latest misinformation incident came after Fox News promoted a Daily Mail story falsely claiming that President Biden was trying to cut down on red meat consumption by 90%. "In multiple segments across multiple properties, it had elevated this study about red meat consumption as far more than simply 'implying' that it was part of an as-yet-nonexistent climate plan from Biden," Philip Bump says of Fox News. "Lifting up a Daily Mail story that inexplicably linked that study to Biden, it presented the idea that Americans would have to cut meat consumption by 90 percent specifically as 'Biden’s climate requirements.' Over and over, hosts trumpeted and debated this purported requirement from Biden with the ecosystem of right-wing social media outrage lifting up and respinning the claim. Fox News is the misinformation superspreading event; the social media world creates viral mutations. Probably in part because Biden’s presidency has been fairly low-profile, his policy proposals relatively well-received and his approval ratings fairly decent, Fox has focused on similar culture war fights that it ties loosely back to Biden, Democrats and the left. The red-meat kerfuffle followed segments about a parent’s complaint about what his children were being taught at a private school in New York City, an example, when viewed through the Fox lens, of left-wing orthodoxy run amok. Before that, of course, the granddaddy of social deflection: the Great Dr. Seuss Controversy of 2021."

ALSO:

• From Tucker Carlson Tonight to Gutfeld!, Fox News spent Monday promoting the lie about Kamala Harris' book
• Fox News' Juan Williams calls out the cable network's recent debunked claims on The Five: “These stories are false, but the right-wing echo chamber starts going crazy because you can go after a Democrat,” he said.