Conflict of interest, advertising disguised as reporting, or both?
QUICK FACTS:
- FOX Business posted a headline to Instagram reading, “When Novavax’s omicron vaccine will be available to you.”
- The Instagram post links to a foxbusiness.com article that is not only uncritical of the new vaccine—even though the formulation is still under FDA review—but advertises the pharmaceutical product as a “top choice” that will “appeal” to “millions of Americans.”
- The FOX Business piece tells the reader when Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine will be ready and how the jab “may appeal more to the millions of Americans who remain unvaccinated” because the shot is “a protein vaccine” as opposed to an mRNA-based vaccine.
- The mainstream news organization boasts that Novavax’s vaccine, supported by $1.8 billion in taxpayer funding, “would be a top choice for boosters, regardless of which kind of vaccines Americans got first.”
VANGUARD/BLACKROCK OWN BOTH NOVAVAX & FOX NEWS:
- The Maryland-based vaccine developer Novavax is owned by financial asset managers The Vanguard Group and BlackRock Inc., the same who own FOX News.
- The financial relationship between FOX Business, Novavax, Vanguard, and BlackRock raises questions about the ethics (or lack thereof) involved in the practice of news organizations advertising products that enrich asset managers who also happen to own that news org.
BACKGROUND:
- BlackRock and Vanguard also own Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca (here), and Johnson & Johnson.
- The two money managers own Comcast/NBC Universal, ABC/Disney, CBS/Paramount, Yahoo!/Verizon, Google News/Alphabet, HuffPost/BuzzFeed, The New York Times, CNN (AT&T), and more.
