Year: 2021

Today in a Zoom meeting with journalists from across the country, mainstream journalists were coaching other journalists how to fight “misinformation” around vaccines, specifically noting that conservative white evangelicals were the main problem demographic for what was styled “vaccine resistance.” “The two subgroups that come up the most who do not want to be vaccinated are Republicans and white Evangelical Christians, along with those in rural areas, which there is some overlap there,” Jennifer Kates, HIV Policy Director at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said in a forum led by the Poynter Institute called “Vaccine Hesitancy: What Journalists Need to Know.”  Joie Chen, former CNN anchor, Al Jazeera and CBS correspondent led the group, which primarily heard from Kates with the Democrat-controlled Kaiser Family Foundation and also Houston journalist Chauncy Glover who was brought in primarily for the benefit of asking how to appeal to African American vaccine resisters.  The seminar revealed that Kates’ employer, the Kaiser Foundation, recently hired comedian Kamau Bell, while wearing a sweater that says “Powerful Black Voter”, to appeal to African Americans.