Credit where credit is due. Fox News anchor Shepard Smith opened his program today with a well thought out commentary that put the facts about Ebola into perspective. It was a rare moment of realism and reason from Fox News and it was delivered with passion and a sincere intention to quell the unnecessary anxieties being stirred up elsewhere in the media. Without further ado, here are Shep’s words (and video below).
For the next few minutes I’m going to give you the facts on Ebola. It’ll take just three minutes. But first today, given what we know, you should have no concerns about Ebola at all. None. I promise. Unless a medical professional has contacted you personally, and told you of some sort of possible exposure, fear not. Do not listen to the hysterical voices on the radio and the television, or read the fear provoking words online. The people who say or write hysterical things are being very irresponsible. […]
Indeed. And that includes Fox News.
Again, these are the facts. We do not have an outbreak of Ebola in the United States. Nowhere. We do have two health care workers who contracted the disease from a dying man. They are isolated. There is no information to suggest that the virus has spread to anyone in the general population. Not one person in the general population of the United States.
But that does not apply to Tea-Bola which is ravaging the wingnut constituency in America.
Suggestions have been made publicly that leaders and medical professionals have been lying to us. Those suggestions are completely without basis in fact. There is no evidence of any kind of which we at Fox News are aware that leaders have lied about anything regarding Ebola. I report to you with certainty this afternoon that being afraid at all is the wrong thing to do. Being petrified, and that’s a quote, is ridiculous. The panic that has tanked the stock market and left people fearful that their children will get sick at school is counterproductive and lacks basis in fact or reason.
Somebody tell Bill O’Reilly (and numerous other Fox alarmists) who says that leaders have lied and that they should resign.
There is no Ebola spreading in America. Should that change, our reporting will change. But there is nothing to indicate that it will. Best advise for you and your family at this moment…get a flu shot. Unlike Ebola, flu is easily transmitted. Flu, along with resulting pneumonia, killed 52,000 Americans last year alone. A flu shot will reduce your chance of getting flu. So get one.
Yet Still Fox fear mongers about an “outbreak” of two.
This commentary is an island of rationality in a sea of animus, bluster, and rancid partisanship. It begs the question, how long does Shep have left on Fox?