Trying to find some objective information on COVID-19 vaccines on the mainstream media? You’d better look somewhere else since the federal government is paying the major news outlet to advertise the vaccines. While the executives of the media outlets claim that the money that they got for vax ads doesn’t influence the news content, the news coverage on the vaccines is often inseparable from the ads.
In response a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The Blaze, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed that it had purchased advertising from major media outlets such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and BuzzFeed News. Even “conservative” outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax took federal money to advertise the shots to their audience. That is in addition to “hundreds of local TV stations and newspapers,” per The Blaze.
The report reads,
Hundreds of news organizations were paid by the federal government to advertise for the vaccines as part of a “comprehensive media campaign,” according to documents TheBlaze obtained from the Department of Health and Human Services. The Biden administration purchased ads on TV, radio, in print, and on social media to build vaccine confidence, timing this effort with the increasing availability of the vaccines.
All of that blitz was possible thanks to the U.S. Congress appropriating no less than $1 billion last March for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “to strengthen vaccine confidence in the United States” and “provide further information and education with respect to vaccines,” and, finally, to “improve rates of vaccination throughout the United States.”
The Blaze points out in its report that
Federal law authorizes HHS to act through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies to award contracts to public and private entities to “carry out a national, evidence-based campaign to increase awareness and knowledge of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines for the prevention and control of diseases, combat misinformation about vaccines, and disseminate scientific and evidence-based vaccine-related information, with the goal of increasing rates of vaccination across all ages … to reduce and eliminate vaccine-preventable diseases.”
Meaning, the taxpayers’ money has been likely used against them, given the campaign was merely based on “evidence” from the CDC that continues to ignore the numerous safety issues and the record-breaking number of adverse reactions to the shots.
Which topics does the advertisement cover?
According to the “COVID-19 Public Education Campaign” website mentioned above, those topics include
- Boosters. Praising the vaccines’ effectiveness in protecting people from severe COVID outcomes, the HHS explains that “a booster shot is an extra dose that helps keep up protection.” Everyone of the age of 12 and older are encouraged to get it.
- Vaccinating children of the age of give and older.
- Vaccinating pregnant and breastfeeding women.
- Vaccines can help slow the emergence of new COVID variants.
- Vaccinating “students, teens, parents, and young adults,” and
- Fighting “COVID misinformation.”
In addition to inviting celebrities, athletes, and media personalities to promote the “Fauci-Ouchy,” the campaign strongly relies on fear-inducing “COVID survivals stories.”
One of the examples of such clips is this one. A man named Terrell says that he has been in hospital for COVID for 76 days. “I died three times, they [the doctors] gave me a five-percent chance of living,” he said, “By the grace of God, I’m still here.” The clip shows a man laying in a hospital bed on a ventilator and covered with countless intertwined tubes.
Terrell encouraged everyone to get vaccinated, because Covd “is no joke.”
Amanda, a mom of two, said that she did not get a COVID shot because she was “concerned about some of the side effects.” She got infected with COVID and “was very close to dying.”
“The fact that I could not get home to my husband and children is terrifying,” said Amanda emotionally.
The campaign does not mention lifestyle choices that impact one’s chances of getting sick with Covid. The clips won’t tell Americans that maintaining a healthy weight with a balanced diet and basic exercise reduces one’s chances of dying from Covid to virtually zero, or that nearly 75 percent of people who died “from” or “with” Covid “were very sick to begin with” and had at least four serious comorbidities, as admitted by CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. Nor does the campaign mention widely available safe and effective treatments for COVID; only “get the vaccine” and “get a booster when eligible,” which is either five months after getting the second Pfizer or Moderna shot, or after two months after getting Johnson and Johnson.
Such stories from COVID patients who were hospitalized in intensive care units were covered by CNN and discussed on ABC’s The View when they were unveiled last October, reports The Blaze.
A CNN October repost specifically states that the government is inciting fear to move the needle in the vax rates, “With vaccination rates only inching forward slowly, the federal government is trying a new marketing tactic: fear.” It further notes, “It’s a sharp turn from earlier ads, which used positive messages — protecting the community, getting back to normal activities, reuniting with friends — to convince hesitant Americans to roll up their sleeves.”
The FOIA documents show, per The Blaze, that the government also paid social-media “influencers,” especially those whose audience represented “communities hit hard by COVID-19,” and the government’s top healthcare officials, including its Covid Czar — now MIA Dr. Anthony Fauci — to promote the shot. They have been regular guests of America’s most-watched news programs on the mission to “educate” the public on the importance of getting vaccinated against Covid.
“As a result of that effort, various government officials have frequently been quoted by reporters covering the COVID-19 pandemic,” offering what they claimed was “factual information on vaccine efficacy and safety.” Sure enough, the “reporting” provided by the outlets cited government officials as the source of “medical truth.” The examples may be found here, here, here, and here.
The report says that the HHS has not disclosed yet how much money was spent on different outlets.
Just the News adds that despite the marketing blitz, as much as a third of Americans remained unconvinced that the COVID vaccines are actually as safe and effective “as seen on TV.”
