Thread by @mbalter

I’ve now had a chance to read this piece in @bmj_latest by @thackerpd. A really good overview of where the #media, especially mainstream science #journalism, went wrong in its coverage of the Covid-19 origins issue from the very beginning. bmj.com/content/374/bm…

The subtitle, “did the media fall victim to a misinformation campaign?” Captures part of the problem; but the other part is that some reporters have now become part of the misinformation campaign, in the sense that they have become cheerleaders for the natural origins...

Hypothesis despite the clear lack of convincing evidence for either of the two leading hypotheses (natural origins vs. lab leak.) Also, too many reporters are still either overlooking or deliberately ignoring the considerable evidence that China has engaged in a...

Concerted effort to prevent anyone, scientists or reporters, from investigating what may or may not have gone on in the Wuhan lab. Among the science journalists covering this, some have done one off pieces in which they conclude that the natural origins hypothesis is...

More “likely” and have then gone on to other things. That is already journalistic malpractice, as the notion of “likelihood” is meaningless when talking about rare events and little evidence (@zeynep has explored that fallacy very well.) But even worse, a cluster of...

Science journalists has committed the serious journalistic sin of turning into fierce advocates of the natural origins theory—Amy Maxmen of Nature is one of the worst offenders—despite the lack of evidence. It’s one thing to take an advocacy role when the evidence is...

Very strong, eg evolution, climate change, etc., but another thing entirely to do so when there is so little real basis for it. And, to add to the damage, it misleads readers into thinking that speculation and “likelihood” estimates are real science, which they are not.

Finally, why did it take an advocacy group like US Right to Know to FOIA those Daszak emails that showed he surreptitiously organized the Feb 2020 Lancet letter while trying to hide his role, and why has it been left to advocacy groups to expose Daszak’s obvious...

Conflicts of interest? That was easy reporting and the mainstream media should have done it, but it did not. So I repeat my previously stated opinion that this is a real low point for science journalism, and requires some serious self-reflection in the field. It gives...

Me no pleasure to say that some of my good friends and colleagues in the science journalism field are most in need of doing this.

I also find it perplexing that a subtext in this discussion is the need to defend #China from criticism as a way of dealing with anti-Asian racism. We don't skew our reporting on China's brutality towards the Uygurs because of such concerns, or we shouldn't, nor its...

stance towards the people of Hong Kong. International reporters would be rightly chastised if they did that, but some science journalists are getting a pass for similar reasons. See: michaelbalter.substack.com/p/pandemic-pol…