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@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
@mbalter
Jun 12 • 9 tweets • 3 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
1/ I’ve said this before, but again: The role of mainstream science #journalism in the #COVID19 origins debate has been a major fail for the field, the worst one since I have been a science journalist myself (40+ years.) Most science writers decided from the beginning that…
2/ a lab or research-related origin was a “conspiracy theory” and “disinformation” without actually doing any real reporting on the origins question—simply relying on quotes from leading virologists and other scientists who—as it turned out—had a vested interest…
3/ in the outcome. That left the real investigative reporting on Covid origins to independent reporters and other investigators, who dug up lots of relevant information which the mainstream journalists then proceeded to either ignore, or continue to quote scientists with…
4/ vested interests without, again, doing original reporting. The result is that the lab origins hypothesis has not only not gone away, but actually gained in currency over the past three years as the efforts to suppress it have become more and more obvious (that is true…
5/ no matter what the truth turns out to be.) There are a few fledgling signs that some mainstream journalists are beginning to realize this, but it’s so little, so late, that they have discredited themselves as real contributors to finding out the truth. That’s not good for…
6/ anyone, and certainly not good for #journalism. Eg, in the years I was at @ScienceMagazine, we would have tended to devote considerable resources to original reporting on an issue like this; instead, the journal’s coverage has been marked by laziness, complacency…
7/ access journalism, and an almost complete failure to do any serious reporting (@sciencecohen “Anywhere But Here” piece a couple of years ago was not bad, but since then Cohen has dropped the ball and followed very few leads.) The failure by Science to cover…
8/ Jesse Bloom’s work on the raccoon dog issue is a glaring example of where the reporting team has gone badly wrong on this issue. @nytimes has been generally terrible as well, with pretty much only one major investigative piece to its name—and that was accomplished…
9/ by bringing in fresh blood to do the main work.

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More from @mbalter

@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 11
My hunch is that when the intel is declassified, and if there are not too many redactions, this is basically what it will say. The whistleblowers are giving us a preview and also trying to keep the intel agencies honest. thetimes.co.uk/article/inside…
2/ The meltdown over this article by some members of the international raccoon dog team (whose work has been largely discredited) is quite amazing in its desperate vitriol. They see their credibility rapidly disintegrating. Science should not be able defending a position.
3/ Here’s how you can tell a real journalist from a faker. The real journalists will immediately start to do followup reporting on the Times report, and come out with their own stories. The fake journalists will immediately take to Twitter to poo-poo the report.
Read 5 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 4
1/ One of the many flaws in #media coverage of the #COVID19 pandemic is the very narrow focus of the “experts” used as sources in the reporting. Virologists are usually considered the number one go-to scientists, with physicians and public health officials a close second…
2/ But actually, understanding a pandemic (or any public health issue for that matter) requires the input of many specialties, including epidemiologists, immunologists, cell and molecular biologists, microbiologists, geneticists, statisticians, and then…
3/ scholars in the social sciences, including sociologists, psychologists, historians of science, philosophers of science, and so forth. To circle back, many virologists have militantly tried to claim this subject matter as their domain and only their domain, but journalists…
Read 7 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 3
1/ This followup story by @KatherineJWu in @TheAtlantic, updating her original piece on the raccoon dog story in the magazine, is much better, and seemingly much more balanced. But I say “seemingly” because in reality it has some serious shortcomings. theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
2/ Most importantly, while it argues that scientists interpret new data thru the lens of their preconceptions and biases—something that is undoubtedly true—it fails to evaluate whether the original claims that raccoon dogs had been linked to the Covid virus was…
3/ exaggerated, possibly even deliberately, by the raccoon dog team. Rather Wu goes from a very slanted perspective in her first piece to posing as a neutral referee in the debate in the second piece. It is understandable why Wu (and other reporters) would do this:
Read 11 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 1
1/ In this @VanityFair piece by @KatherineEban, French researcher Florence Debarre is quoted as saying the headline in @KatherineJWu’s story in @TheAtlantic about the raccoon dog “findings” being the “strongest evidence yet” for a market origin of the pandemic was “ridiculous.”
2/ Yet the question remains how Wu and her editors got this idea, which a spokesperson for the magazine basically stood by both in a statement to Eban and an earlier statement to me for an article in Quill (the @spj_tweets magazine.) The answer may lie with another question…
3/ which is who tipped Wu off to the analysis of the “international team” in the first place. My hunch is that whoever did that tipped off reporters at @nytimes and @ScienceMagazine at close to the same time, because both publications were able to get stories up the same day.
Read 10 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 1
1/ Happy to see that a defamation suit brought by Peruvian archaeologist (and former culture minister) Luis Jame Castillo Butters against @theNASciences and its president @Marcia4Science has been dismissed by the federal judge in the case. See: pacermonitor.com/public/case/46…
2/ Castillo was kicked out of the NAS in October 2021 after an internal investigation confirmed longstanding allegations of sexual #harassment by Castillo. However, the NAS never said publicly this was the reason for his ejection, only telling NAS members that he had…
3/ violate the NAS Code of Conduct. Indeed, it was Castillo himself, not NAS, who made public the allegations of sexual harassment, when he filed his lawsuit against the academy. Thus the defendants’ argument that Castillo had, in legalese, “failed to state a claim” was…
Read 8 tweets
@mbalter — investigations and commentary Profile picture
Jun 1
1/ The position of most proponents of a zoonotic spillover scenario for the origins of #COVID19 is that, despite the warnings given by the 2002-4 SARS1 outbreak, Chinese officials failed to control or even seriously regulate the wildlife trade, thereby causing the pandemic…
2/ The position of most proponents of a lab or research-related origin for the pandemic is that Chinese officials encouraged risky research with potential human pathogens, thereby causing the pandemic when they escaped into the larger human population. The irony is…
3/ That both sides are right, no matter what the actual origins of the pandemic turn out to be: Wildlife trade was not adequately controlled, and risky research was done. So anyone who thinks they are somehow protecting the reputation of Chinese scientists…
Read 4 tweets

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