The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News

Abstract

We document a causal effect of the conservative Fox News Channel in the USA on physical distancing during COVID-19 pandemic. We measure county-level mobility covering all US states and District of Columbia produced by GPS pings to 15–17 million smartphones and zip-code-level mobility using Facebook location data. Using the historical position of Fox News Channel in the cable lineup as the source of exogenous variation, we show that increased exposure to Fox News led to a smaller reduction in distance traveled and a smaller increase in the probability of staying home after the national emergency declaration in the USA. Our results show that slanted media can have a harmful effect on containment efforts during a pandemic by affecting people’s behavior.

Conservative Media Use and COVID-19 Related Behavior: The Moderating Role of Media Literacy Variables

“…Across these studies, a particular emphasis has been put on Fox News and its impact on preventative measures like social distancing and mask-wearing. Much like aforementioned studies on 'Trump counties,' recent work [56,58] suggest that exposure to Fox News led to a smaller decrease in travelling during the first lockdown mandates in March/April 2020. Additional research suggests that Fox viewers are also less likely to wear masks and be concerned for the safety of their family in response to the ongoing pandemic [59].…”

“…Across a wide range of contemporary research on both political ideology and news media use as it relates to COVID-19, evidence suggests that reliance on conservative media is associated with lower adoption of behavioral measures aimed at mitigating risk of infection [56][57][58][59][60][61]. Existing studies show some inconsistency in the precise effect of conservative ideology or Republican partisan affiliation and its impact on COVID-related behavior, with some finding that conservatives/Republicans were less likely to adopt preventative behaviors [58] and others finding no significant relationship between the two [56]. Yet overall, the impact of conservative media appears relatively consistent in the literature.…”

The influence of extreme events such as Brexit and Covid-19 on equity markets

“…This shows that during the first three days after declaring the pandemic, the US was the only country that was trusted by the financial markets to provide a positive answer against the Covid-19 after declaring the national emergency. Indeed, as shown in Ananyev et al (2021) , the importance of Trump declaring the national emergency, was a very positive move that was perceived by the stock market reacting with the largest single-day gain since October 2008.…”

“…We also show that the day that Covid-19 was declared as a global pandemic, China and Japan (countries that already implemented lockdowns in the previous months) did not experience evidence of abnormal returns in their financial markets. Moreover, we provide evidence that during the three days after declaring the global pandemic, the US was the only analyzed country showing no evidence of negative abnormal returns, being therefore the only country that financial markets were trusting during those three days to provide a positive reply to the pandemic after the declaration of the national emergency on March 13, 2020 (see Ananyev et al, 2021 ). As shown in Salvatore (2020) , since his election, President Trump has reduced U.S. taxes and regulations and increased expenditure for infrastructures and the military.…”

“…Along the same lines, we show that during the first three days after declaring the Covid-19 a pandemic, financial markets in the US did not show evidence of negative abnormal returns, due to the declaration of the national emergency in the US. Indeed, as shown in Ananyev et al (2021) , “… From a policy standpoint, the most important implication of the national emergency was a fiscal one: it became easier for Federal Emergency Management Agency to transfer money to the states. It has freed up as much as $50 billion in financial resources.…”