The cable news channel has featured guests suggesting an anti-Trump agenda among those calling for more action and others promoting conspiracy theories

Fox News, the conservative cable TV network, has been accused of downplaying the threat of the coronavirus to its viewers while at the same time taking measures to protect its own staff from the outbreak’s threat.

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Some guests on the channel have openly speculated that those imploring the US to take more action have a political anti-Donald Trump agenda. Others have promoted baseless conspiracy theories.

On Friday Jerry Falwell Jr, a Christian evangelical leader and ardent Donald Trump supporter, told the Fox & Friends programme: “It’s just strange to me how so many are overreacting. The H1N1 virus, in 2009, killed 17,000 people. It was the flu, also, I think, and there was not the same hype.

“You just didn’t see it on the news 24/7 and it makes you wonder if there’s a political reason for that. Impeachment didn’t work and the Mueller report didn’t work and Article 25 [the 25th amendment to the constitution] didn’t work so maybe now this is their next attempt to get Trump.”

As the Fox & Friends hosts sat mute, Falwell, the president of Liberty University, then floated a wild and baseless conspiracy theory. “The owner of a restaurant asked me last night, he said, ‘You remember the North Korean leader promised a Christmas present for America, back in December? Could it be they got together with China, and this is that present?’ I don’t know but it really is something strange going on.”

Critics say that Falwell’s outburst is far from the only one. Several prime-time Fox News opinion hosts were slow to recognize the severity or the virus and accused other media outlets of hyping it to whip up anti-Trump hysteria.

Kurt Bardella, a former congressional spokesman, said: “They’re not just downplaying it. They’ve been putting out deliberate misinformation that’s harmful to the public welfare. Fox News has really reached an all-time low in how they’ve covered the coronavirus. The majority of their marquee prime-time talent has been more concerned about carrying water for Trump than the public good.”

The average Fox News viewer is 67 years old, similar to CNN and MSNBC viewers, making them vulnerable to the coronavirus. Bardella, a former Breitbart News spokesman, said: “It’s entirely possible through their misguided efforts to protect Trump that they’re putting their own viewers in harm’s way.”

Yet inside Fox News, it is a different story. The company has suspended non-essential business travel for employees and told them to work from home when possible. It will also reduce guest appearances in its studios and no longer allow live audiences at the Fox & Friends show, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In email seen by the paper, Fox News’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, and president, Jay Wallace, wrote: “We are reducing the staff footprint at our headquarters in New York and some of our bureaus and will be instituting telecommuting starting Monday, March 16th for all of those departments capable of doing so.”

Play Video 1:57 Trump's changing reactions to coronavirus: from calm to closing borders – video report

Trump is an avid consumer of Fox News and there is ample evidence that it shapes his thinking. The channel is planning hugely expanded news coverage of the crisis. One prime-time host did seem to recognize the gravity of the situation in what sounded like a direct appeal to the president.

Tucker Carlson said on his Monday show: “In crisis, it’s more important than ever to be calm. But staying calm is not the same as remaining complacent. It does not mean assuring people that everything will be fine. We don’t know that. Instead, it’s better to tell the truth. That is always the surest sign of strength.”

Some analysts call for moderation in critiques of the channel’s coronavirus coverage. Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University, condemned the platform given to Falwell other unreliable guests but suggested it has not been uniformly egregious. “Fox News isn’t very often saying, ‘There isn’t a threat’; they’re saying the threat is exaggerated. It’s easy to misinterpret that.

“We haven’t had a lot of Fox News personalities saying, ‘This virus isn’t dangerous, it’s not a big deal.’ It’s been more, ‘The left is going too far.’ The biggest thing they’ve done is slot it into the anti-Trump line they’ve been running for years now, accusing Trump’s critics of not supporting the country.”

But Cassino, author of Fox News and American Politics, noted that Trump and conservative media have generated a difficult climate. “The problem with building a narrative for 20 years that says the government and media can’t be trusted is that it’s very difficult to turn on a dime and say now they can be trusted. That’s what conservative media is dealing with,” Cassino said.