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The media got the coronavirus very wrong. The WHO was feckless at best. But even as their #COVID19 messaging changed, their sham certainty remained the same.

I went down into the memory hole for @CityJournal and dug it all up and examined what it means. city-journal.org/press-coverage…
Let's start with @DrTedros. Most media outlets followed the WHO's lead by downplaying #COVID19 in the early weeks.

What was the WHO head telling the world? That anti-Chinese stigma was "more dangerous than the virus itself"; that it was in fact "the most dangerous enemy."
My #longread details the extent to which the WHO carried water for the CCP and Xi Jinping, and why Tedros might have done so. German intelligence estimates China's cover-up cost the world 4–6 weeks in its fight against #COVID19.

The media failed in part b/c it relied on the WHO.
How did the media fail? Rather than take the coronavirus threat seriously, much of the media initially took it as an opportunity to scold those reacting "improperly" to it. Ideological priors and a lack of domain expertise blinded reporters, editors and pundits to the real story.
Early on, technologists like @balajis voiced grave concerns. The media treated them as paranoid doomsayers. In mid-Feb., Recode was shaming Bay Area tech workers for trying to limiting their exposure.

A month later, California put its 40 million residents under quarantine.
When the media finally pivoted, the intellectual dishonesty from some quarters was breathtaking.

Suddenly it was only Trump and Fox News that had downplayed the coronavirus. Suddenly the term "Wuhan virus," which the NY Times and others had freely employed, was racist to employ.
@AriSchulman helped me to see the parallels b/w the coronavirus pandemic and the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

Then, as now, public-health officials failed, and a number of journalists acted as though their responsibility was less to inform than to mock and chasten an ignorant public.
By late spring the info war being waged over #COVID19 began heating up. Partly as a result of systemic failures by the MSM, we had created a media environment in which millions were persuaded to turn from reputable sources to rogue websites and conspiracy videos like "Plandemic."
Then came the killing of George Floyd. Then came mass protests and riots nationwide. Hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly jostling one another in the streets.

And media outlets and officials formerly united in the need for social distancing rushed to support them.
Nearly 1300 public-health professionals and activists signed an open letter arguing that "protests against systemic racism ... must be supported," no matter what. Yet as @NAChristakis wrote, "large gatherings... facilitate [the] spread of contagious disease"—no matter the reason.
The hypocrisy of this latest media pivot has been too much for some. In April, 9/10 Republicans trusted info about the coronavirus from medical experts. Now only 1/3 does. Americans are unlikely to abide lockdown a second time, even if the political will exists to implement it.
The #COVID19 pandemic is a generation-defining event. In the U.S. there have been 4.2 million confirmed infections and 147,000 people have died. Even Trump says it will "get worse before it gets better."

From the WHO, from politicians, from the media there has been no mea culpa.
The consequences of their (often willful) failures have been, and continue to be, devastating. The bad actors themselves, meanwhile, have suffered few if any consequences.
As always, this thread can only scratch the surface of the piece, giving some of its bullet points but lacking all that made the essay worth writing. I'd love for you to read it in full. city-journal.org/press-coverage…

cc: @balajis @stillgray @AriSchulman @wesyang @jonkay
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