Do you remember how bad the media’s “Covid lab leak” - the hypothesis that the virus came from a lab - coverage was?
I thought I did. But it was a more dramatic example of uniform media malpractice than even I remembered.
So I revisited it. Buckle in, it’s long. ⤵️
It started in Feb 2020 when @SenTomCotton suggested looking into the CCP lab studying bats near the initial cases in Wuhan.
The media were outraged. In a since-updated piece, @washingtonpost said the idea was a “conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts.”
It wasn’t just WaPo. Shortly thereafter, @nytimes trotted out a similar allegation, calling the lab leak hypothesis a “fringe theory” and a “tale” designed to inflame social media.
@CNN’s @ChrisCillizza said Cotton was “playing a dangerous game” with his suggestions.
@USATODAY, in a since-updated fact check, said that Cotton’s claims were “false” because “overwhelming scientific evidence” said so.
A quick pause here to point something out. What the media were up in arms about wasn’t the veracity of the lab leak idea.
Just that people thought it was *plausible*. That it “may” be true, as @SenTomCotton said.
Look how close the lab is to the first cases. “May” is too much?
Anyway, back to the coverage. This was the dawn of what I like to call “experts say” reporting, where an outlet finds someone with credentials who agrees with them to make the point the outlet wants to make.
Here’s @NatGeo, @Forbes, @CBSNews & @washingtonpost doing that here.
There were some even more dramatic examples I want to call out.
Maybe my all time favorite is from @NPR who, with the confidence that only that station posses, claimed that the lab leak theory had been “debunked” in April 2020.
This @ABC headline presented without comment
It was really a banner time period for outlets using “fact checkers” as a political weapon with no connection to facts, as @CNN does here.
The word of the year had to be “debunked,” which many outlets seemed to believe meant “we don’t like this idea.”
It’s impossible to ignore how this story intersects with Trump & his admin.
Once he said he believed the lab leak idea, the press decided it must be a lie.
Some really rich headlines here from @business (really?), @VICE (remember them?), @CNN (“crushed”!) and @BusinessInsider.
It’s really the condescending tone here from @chrislhayes that gets me.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, I want to remind you that @NPR is funded in part by your tax dollars.
More on your tax dollars soon.
Just a quick aside. The press at the time purported to be very upset that Trump was using the same language that they had used a few weeks before, to describe the virus as Chinese.
Here’s @CNN.
Then a poll came out finding that lots of people believed the lab leak theory: about a third of Americans.
The press leapt to tar the believers as rubes & the people who convinced them as charlatans.
There’s a lot of this but a few from @CNN, @Forbes, @voxdotcom & @thehill.
One moment you may’ve forgotten: in April 2020, Trump stopped US funding to the lab in question in Wuhan.
Read: up until then, your tax dollars were paying for dubious research in an autocratic regime that maybe started a plague.
Naturally the media applauded that move, right?
Wrong. The press were incensed Trump would stop giving your tax dollars to a shady lab in China.
@CBSNews said it was “jeopardizing” a Covid cure. @nytimes did much the same. @ABC blamed the bad move on “conspiracy theories” as @VanityFair pointed to “right-wing disinformation.”
One phenomenon that really stuck with me is how the press elevated China’s claims in an effort to, I presume, stick it to Trump.
Look at how @nytimes, @CNN and @TIME put the U.S. and China on equal believability footings.
This wasn’t a mere momentary blip. All the way until December, @AP was writing up the lab leak as a conspiracy theory that survived online “despite facts.”
Right.
The enormous irony of the @AP story about Covid “conspiracy theories” is the image that accompanies it.
“Wear a mask outside” the 1984-esq wall art reads.
The real facts aren’t as hospitable to what the media was claiming in 2020.
Further investigation into the lab leak in 2021 gave the idea a respectability even the mainstream media couldn’t ignore. They started to change their tune. Here’s @nytimes
Then in 2023 Biden’s own Department of Energy said that the lab leak theory was the most likely explanation for Covid’s origins.
The side-by-sides of the original reporting vs the newly indisputable facts are what I see when I close my eyes at this point. @NPR
You probably don’t need me to spell it out for you, but you really can’t overstate the impact of the failure. When we should’ve been investigating what happened, the press had given social media platforms cover to censor the mere mention of the lab leak.
The media cheered along.
As a result of the media refusing to consider a politically inconvenient idea — and their need to throttle its very mention — we may never definitively know what caused a pandemic that’s killed millions and irrevocably changed the course of modern life.
And it may mean that some people get off scot-free for what they’ve done to play a role in that disaster.
Hard to imagine that wasn’t the goal all along, in my humble opinion.
There’s a lot more to this story than I could fit into a thread.
As @joshrogin rightly notes, I was remiss to not mention that not everyone in the media got to the story wrong. Josh was one of the real bright spots in media coverage of this episode, like this piece from April: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
If you enjoyed this thread, I would really encourage you to subscribe to my newsletter, @holden_court.
In the coming days, I’m planning to announce more opportunities to discuss this and other reporting that I’ll be offering for free for a limited time. open.substack.com/pub/drewholden…
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8 years after I said I would, 2 years after a brain tumor diagnosis, and 1 year after finishing chemo & radiation, I’m finally running the Army 10-miler in a couple weeks, and raising money for a good cause.
I hope you’ll check out the details in the 🧵thread🧵 below. 👇
The 10-miler is, as the name implies, a 10 mile road race in Washington, D.C. It’s October 13th, so, soon!
If you’d like to donate (100% of donations go to charity, more on that below). The link is here:
I’m running (okay, slowly jogging) it to raise money for Undue Medical Debt, a really good charity that helps people who’re saddled with debt from the medical care they need (or needed).
It’s genuinely unclear who is executing the responsibilities of the leader of the free world and the media — providers of transparency, beacons of integrity — couldn’t seem to care less.
That there could be any question more important for anyone in the media to ask than “who is in charge of the country, right now, at this moment?” defies all logic.
Look, I know there’s bigger news today, but with Biden’s “black jobs” quip on Friday, I’ve gotta revisit the media meltdown on the term, as stupid as it is.
Do you remember how insulted & offended the press were when Trump said “black jobs”?
I’ve got screenshots. ⤵️
Some quick context: Biden in a speech on Friday, referred to jobs as “black jobs,” as in held by black folks.
If that phrase sounds familiar, it’s because Trump said it at his debate with Biden a couple months ago.
The media went ballistic.
Just look at the indignation here from @axios when Trump used the phrase.
“Reality check.” I mean, cmon!
And so now what, Axios? Is Biden suddenly a monster, too?
I was struck by the number of dubious statements and flat-out lies at the DNC.
It appears the mainstream media isn’t much interested in them, amid their jubilant, joy-full coverage. So I decided to do some fact-checking, focused on Biden’s speech.
There’s a lot. ⤵️
1. The first thing that jumped out to me was Trump’s alleged “very fine people on both sides” description of Charlottesville.
Haven’t we been over this, time and again? The context makes clear Trump didn’t mean the neo-Nazis. Even @snopes admitted it!
Yet Biden trotted it out.
2. Biden claimed he and his admin “demonizes no one.”
What, then, about Biden’s remarks about Trump supporters? That they are “determined to destroy democracy,” practitioners of “semi-fascism,” and “a threat to the very soul of this nation.”
The media haven’t been interested in providing voters with much of a picture of Kamala Harris beyond “vibes.”
So I did the work for them and went back through what she’s actually said and done on policy and beyond.
It isn’t a pretty picture. Follow along ⤵️
There’s nowhere better to start than on immigration. Back in 2020, Harris was among the Dem candidates who supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
Now @politico claims she “promised to go tough on border security.”
Color me skeptical.
Especially considering she supported eliminating ICE, tried to stop production on the border wall, and otherwise unwind the Trump policies that actually reduced illegal immigration.