Lisa Booth (bio here) had a good upbringing, so don’t blame her parents for her ending up at Fox News.
Booth, a Republican staffer and campaign operative before landing at Fox, is an anti-vaxxer. She ranted on air that the U.S. isn’t better than China about “taking away the freedoms of Americans who refuse to be vaccinated” (read story here).
Fact check: China’s lockdowns confine people to their homes without food or medicine; Americans can leave their homes “regardless of their vaccine status.” There was never a time during the pandemic when they couldn’t.
Booth also claims “Democrats wanted to put people like me, who haven’t had a vaccine, in a government camp.” China is detaining over a million Uyghurs in “re-education” camps (details here). Nobody in the U.S. proposed “government camps” for vaccine refuseniks, although Ann Coulter and other conservatives have talked about wanting to put liberals in “concentration camps.”
Nor is it true, as Booth claims, that she can’t eat in restaurants without a vaccine card (I’ll bet she eats out all the time). She also ranted against requiring military personnel to get shots. She knows nothing about the military. Fact check: The military has been requiring immunizations since World War 2 to maintain combat readiness.
Booth apparently does occasionally eat at home. She complained she can’t get Maine lobster from Whole Foods. You can’t get it from Hello Fresh, the meal kit company, either. That’s because fishing gear is a deadly threat to North Atlantic right whales, which are threatened with extinction (see story here).
Booth said “it’s never happened that one of the whales has been killed as a result of lobster fishing in Maine” — which isn’t true — so she doesn’t understand why it matters. Lobster fishing is important to Maine’s economy and the people who depend on it for jobs, so this doesn’t just affect seafood lovers. But what if there are ways to save the jobs and the whales by making some changes? Scientists, fisheries regulators, and industry representatives are having those discussions.
There’s nothing resembling discussion on Fox, just knee-jerk commentary by hosts like Booth who often are either lying or don’t know what they’re talking about. What viewers get from Fox isn’t journalism, but propaganda. Fox doesn’t have a constructive presence in American media; it’s a disinformation source. For example, putting anti-vaxxers like Booth on the air isn’t helping its audience (see story here).
I think Fox hosts are screwed up because the money is good there. It doesn’t bother them that no one will ever consider them legitimate journalists. They are to journalism what soda pop and candy are to healthy diets. When you eat candy, the candymaker doesn’t mind.