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SQL

If you want a count, ask for a count. Don't ask the server to send all the data for all the rows, just to have the client count the rows. (A few hundred rows is a trivial amount of data for a database to handle, but still, you should follow good practices.)

SELECT SUM(*) AS obj_count
    FROM (
        SELECT COUNT(article_active)
            FROM wcx_articles WHERE article_active = '0'
        UNION ALL
        SELECT COUNT(video_active)
            FROM wcx_videos WHERE video_active = '0'
        UNION ALL
        SELECT COUNT(app_active)
            FROM wcx_apps WHERE app_active = '0'
        UNION ALL
        SELECT COUNT(link_active)
            FROM wcx_links WHERE link_active = '0'
    ) AS wcs_objects;

Schema

If in fact all four of your tables are union-compatible with each other, then you should strongly consider merging them into one table with a wcx_type attribute that declares what type of object that row represents.

Are your …_active columns really strings? Those columns should be of the BOOLEAN (i.e., TINYINT(1)) type. The query should be adjusted accordingly: use …_active = 0 instead of …_active = '0'.

PHP

You reused the $query parameter to store the result of the query. Don't be stingy like that — it's confusing. Use a new variable to store the result.

You are mixing the object-oriented and procedural styles of mysqli. Be consistent.