Never forget those who shut down COVID-19 debate to protect China
by Washington Examiner
February 28, 2023 06:46 AM
To most people, news that yet another government agency now believes the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan lab is the least surprising development in the last three years. What, though, should we make of journalists who spent so much time and effort trying to suppress the story, attempting to discourage inquiry and independent thinking by threatening those who dared voice it, accusing them of outlandish and even racist conspiracy theories?
“Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots," wrote Apoorva Mandavilli, the New York Times journalist covering COVID-19. "But alas, that day is not today.” She later deleted the tweet amid an understandable backlash against it. What does her clear and profound ignorance say about New York Times coverage? Note that her tweet, in late May 2021, came after the Wall Street Journal reported that researchers at the Wuhan Institute had been among the first to fall ill.
By that late date, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler had finally stopped singing with the chorus and was admitting that most news outlets had got the story wrong. Months earlier, apparently based on an animation he had seen online, Kessler had called it "virtually impossible" for a lab leak to have caused COVID-19. He even criticized Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for suggesting otherwise.
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