Anti-mask New York Post requires all of its employees to wear masks in latest sign of Murdoch media hypocrisy

By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business

The New York Post, the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid that has peddled a high volume of anti-mask rhetoric during the pandemic, informed employees this month that they are required to wear a mask while at the office, according to a memo obtained by CNN Business.

“Masks are required while walking the floor/not at your desk,” Sean Giancola, publisher and chief executive of the tabloid, told staff in an August 12 memo.

The formal guidance attached to Giancola’s memo said employees must “mask up” and “cover [their] face when away from [their] desk or chatting with colleagues.”

The New York Post’s mask mandate is the latest example of the brazen hypocrisy in Murdoch’s media empire. Murdoch’s media organizations, such as Fox News and the Post, have disparaged public health officials and the guidance they issue about vaccines and masks. But these media organizations have quietly required their employees to follow the very same health protocols that they’ve lampooned in print and on air.

The right-wing tabloid, for instance, has repeatedly questioned mask mandates and asserted they are not necessary, particularly for vaccinated people.

When the CDC said in July that it was recommending vaccinated people wear masks in areas with “substantial” and “high” community transmission of Covid-19, the Post called it “madness.”

“This is nonsense — and pernicious, too,” the Post’s editorial board wrote at the time.

The Post has also called for other agencies to lift their mask mandates.

In a July 7 article, the editorial board said it’s “time to scrap the mandate for masks on trains and buses.” That editorial said wearing a mask on public transit is “pointless and performative.”

“It’s time to lift the mask mandate,” the Post editorial board declared.

The paper’s July 30 front page also carried a banner headline that said “INSANITY!” It highlighted the odds of a vaccinated person getting seriously sick with Covid-19 and asked, “So why the panic? Why new mask mandates? Why no common sense?”

The Post has published stories during the pandemic that question whether masks actually prevent the spread of Covid-19, even though public health officials, independent doctors, and studies have indicated they do.

The recent guidance from the Post also said employees are required to take a daily health screening “every day before entering the office.”

The memo from the Post, however, did not indicate that employees must be vaccinated to return to the office.

The-CNN-Wire
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