FOX HOSTS LIONIZED AN EX-STATE TROOPER FOR HIS ANTI-VAX STANCE. THEN HE DIED OF COVID-19.
Robert LaMay was portrayed by Fox as a martyr for defying vaccine mandates, but its hosts haven’t yet acknowledged the rest of the story.
BY CALEB ECARMA
Robert LaMay was portrayed by Fox as a martyr for defying vaccine mandates, but its hosts haven’t yet acknowledged the rest of the story.
BY CALEB ECARMA
FEBRUARY 1, 2022
Traffic on Sixth Avenue passes by advertisements featuring Fox News personalities, including Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, adorn the front of the News Corporation building on March 13, 2019
.BY DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
In October, some of Fox News’s biggest stars lauded Washington state trooper Robert LaMay after he resigned from his job in protest over Governor Jay Inslee’s vaccine mandate for state employees. The 22-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol shared a video of his final message on the agency’s dispatch system, claiming that he was “being asked to leave because I am dirty” in a viral clip. (LaMay said he had received a religious vaccine exemption but still resigned.) “This is the last time you’ll hear me in a state patrol car,” he added. “And Jay Inslee can kiss my ass.” During the first week of his retirement, LaMay drew the conservative media spotlight, appearing on Mornings With Maria and receiving praise from The Ingraham Angle, where he was portrayed as a martyr for refusing the jab.
On Friday, almost four months after his triumphant press tour, KIRO radio in Washington reported that the 50-year-old LaMay had died after contracting COVID-19. In a statement, Washington State Patrol chief John R. Batiste wrote that he was “deeply saddened” by the passing of a “former friend and colleague” and offered his prayers to LaMay’s family. But Fox News stars who covered LaMay’s decision to remain unvaccinated—we don’t know the details of his case, but the COVID-19 vaccine is the best protection against serious illness and death—have not expressed similar condolences. Instead, Fox hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo are ignoring the news of his passing, and the network has instead moved on to a new cast of anti-vax patriots to charm their audience of millions. (Fox News did run a story about LaMay's death online.)
Throughout Fox’s Monday night programming, viewers were introduced to a slew of people portrayed as blue-collar mavericks heroically opposing oppressive vaccine mandates imposed on them by liberal elites. Sean Hannity extolled a group of Canadian truck drivers for protesting against “the government’s restrictive COVID-19 mandates,” Ingraham invited on a Washington, D.C., business owner who said he had his liquor license suspended after defying the city’s pandemic safety statutes, and Tucker Carlson spoke with a trucker from the anti-vax “freedom convoy” who conducted his Fox News interview from inside his rig.
In October, when LaMay appeared on Ingraham’s show, the Fox host all but acknowledged her network’s power to elevate and lionize those who oppose COVID vaccines. “What’s next for you—other than being a celebrity now—what’s next for you?” Ingraham asked, to which LaMay said he would continue to be a “spokesperson” for the “thousands, even millions” of Americans opposed to vaccine mandates. At the end of the segment, Ingraham referred to Americans like LaMay as a “sleeping giant” beginning to stir. “We hope that that’s what’s happened here,” she added. “We’ve awakened it slowly but surely. Robert, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your voice and best of luck to you.”
While LaMay’s passing went largely unaddressed on Fox News, a cable news host on another network did recognize it on Monday: MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who described the LaMay story as a “horrifying tragedy” that embodied America’s current iteration of cultural infighting. LaMay “lived his values…values no doubt informed by right-wing media,” he said, pointing out that Fox’s viewers “only hear the anti-vax talking points that made Robert LaMay a celebrity,” even as the company takes COVID-19 “very, very seriously” behind the scenes. “For their own ratings, for fame, for cynical monetary purposes, that network—which is overseen by CEO Suzanne Scott, you should know her name—has decided to fan the flames of vaccine resistance,” he continued. “And those flames are getting thousands of people killed. And when those people die, they are of course forgotten by Fox News.”
The tragic story of LaMay is not unique: Caleb Wallace, a Texas man who helped organize an anti-mask “Freedom Rally,” died of COVID-19 in August, while Cirsten Weldon, a QAnon influencer who advised her followers not to get vaccinated, also passed away from the virus. Amid last year’s delta wave, several popular anti-vax radio personalities died of COVID-19 within weeks of each other. Still, it seems that such deaths will not stop the conservative media machine from continuing to glorify those who oppose basic public health measures—just don’t expect them to keep telling the story after it ends too soon.
In October, some of Fox News’s biggest stars lauded Washington state trooper Robert LaMay after he resigned from his job in protest over Governor Jay Inslee’s vaccine mandate for state employees. The 22-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol shared a video of his final message on the agency’s dispatch system, claiming that he was “being asked to leave because I am dirty” in a viral clip. (LaMay said he had received a religious vaccine exemption but still resigned.) “This is the last time you’ll hear me in a state patrol car,” he added. “And Jay Inslee can kiss my ass.” During the first week of his retirement, LaMay drew the conservative media spotlight, appearing on Mornings With Maria and receiving praise from The Ingraham Angle, where he was portrayed as a martyr for refusing the jab.
On Friday, almost four months after his triumphant press tour, KIRO radio in Washington reported that the 50-year-old LaMay had died after contracting COVID-19. In a statement, Washington State Patrol chief John R. Batiste wrote that he was “deeply saddened” by the passing of a “former friend and colleague” and offered his prayers to LaMay’s family. But Fox News stars who covered LaMay’s decision to remain unvaccinated—we don’t know the details of his case, but the COVID-19 vaccine is the best protection against serious illness and death—have not expressed similar condolences. Instead, Fox hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo are ignoring the news of his passing, and the network has instead moved on to a new cast of anti-vax patriots to charm their audience of millions. (Fox News did run a story about LaMay's death online.)
Throughout Fox’s Monday night programming, viewers were introduced to a slew of people portrayed as blue-collar mavericks heroically opposing oppressive vaccine mandates imposed on them by liberal elites. Sean Hannity extolled a group of Canadian truck drivers for protesting against “the government’s restrictive COVID-19 mandates,” Ingraham invited on a Washington, D.C., business owner who said he had his liquor license suspended after defying the city’s pandemic safety statutes, and Tucker Carlson spoke with a trucker from the anti-vax “freedom convoy” who conducted his Fox News interview from inside his rig.
In October, when LaMay appeared on Ingraham’s show, the Fox host all but acknowledged her network’s power to elevate and lionize those who oppose COVID vaccines. “What’s next for you—other than being a celebrity now—what’s next for you?” Ingraham asked, to which LaMay said he would continue to be a “spokesperson” for the “thousands, even millions” of Americans opposed to vaccine mandates. At the end of the segment, Ingraham referred to Americans like LaMay as a “sleeping giant” beginning to stir. “We hope that that’s what’s happened here,” she added. “We’ve awakened it slowly but surely. Robert, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your voice and best of luck to you.”
While LaMay’s passing went largely unaddressed on Fox News, a cable news host on another network did recognize it on Monday: MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who described the LaMay story as a “horrifying tragedy” that embodied America’s current iteration of cultural infighting. LaMay “lived his values…values no doubt informed by right-wing media,” he said, pointing out that Fox’s viewers “only hear the anti-vax talking points that made Robert LaMay a celebrity,” even as the company takes COVID-19 “very, very seriously” behind the scenes. “For their own ratings, for fame, for cynical monetary purposes, that network—which is overseen by CEO Suzanne Scott, you should know her name—has decided to fan the flames of vaccine resistance,” he continued. “And those flames are getting thousands of people killed. And when those people die, they are of course forgotten by Fox News.”
The tragic story of LaMay is not unique: Caleb Wallace, a Texas man who helped organize an anti-mask “Freedom Rally,” died of COVID-19 in August, while Cirsten Weldon, a QAnon influencer who advised her followers not to get vaccinated, also passed away from the virus. Amid last year’s delta wave, several popular anti-vax radio personalities died of COVID-19 within weeks of each other. Still, it seems that such deaths will not stop the conservative media machine from continuing to glorify those who oppose basic public health measures—just don’t expect them to keep telling the story after it ends too soon.
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