The Media, the Virus and the "Lab Leak" Hypothesis

[Jon Banks]

Josh Rogin, a reporter for the Washington Post and someone who has been, almost by himself, covering/reporting the "lab leak" theory from the beginning - from early 2020 - has a very tough twitter thread about the failure of his fellow reporters on this story. He's not going to very popular with them.

Rogin:
#1: "All these reporters scrambling to defend their own records on the lab leak theory are exposing their own hypocrisy & ignoring their basic error. Just report the facts. Don’t act like its your job to tell us whats ok to think or talk about. Own up to it when you fail your readers."

#2: "Also, the lab leak theory didn’t change. It didn’t suddenly become credible. It didn’t jump from crazy to reasonable. The theory has always been the same. The people who got it wrong changed their minds. They are writing about themselves, with zero self awareness."

#3: "Most MSM reporters didn’t “ignore” the lab leak theory, they actively crapped all over it for over a year while pretending to be objective out of a toxic mix of confirmation bias, source bias (their scientist sources lied to them), group think, TDS and general incompetence."

I think this is a bit overly harsh especially #2. The evidence for this has changed, we have learned much more from last year. About the wet markets in particular. So this is, I think, not completely fair or accurate.

Link here: https://twitter.com/joshrogin/status/1398661632193089536

#3 seems harsh to me.

I don’t recall any scientists saying a Lab Leak origin is impossible. Maybe a few did. Most scientists just think it’s unlikely because the virus doesn’t appear to be man-made.

The head of the Wuhan Virology Lab admitted early in 2020 that she feared that the virus came from her lab although she says after an investigation, she was relieved that it didn’t match virus samples that they were studying. It’s understandable why her statement shouldn’t be accepted at face value (she lives in an authoritarian country afterall) but I don’t recall many articles referencing that outside of some of the scientific articles that I’ve read.

Her statement alone is proof that a Lab accident is possible. Obviously she initially wasn’t confident that the virus didn’t come from her Lab (and still may not be).

[Jon Banks]

If anyone has time to watch a lengthy video, this conversation in the video below gives a good summary of the reasons why Virologists believe a natural origin for Covid is most likely what happened (and why they think a Lab leak is less likely). Could the scientists be wrong? Of course. However, they have more experience in studying viruses than 99% of us so we can't dismiss their opinions:

[Rick Plant]

A lot of folks in the Mainstream Media disliked Trump so much that they weren’t able to report on his Presidency objectively.

I say this as someone who didn’t vote for Trump and thought he was a lousy President.

Reporting Criminal Donald's crimes and scandals is objective reporting. The right wing media covered up everything.   

[Rick Plant]

Yep, the story was that the mainstream media - the major outlets - refused to cover the story. And social media banned people from linking to the NY Post story. And the NY Post was banned by Twitter and Facebook from linking to their story. This nonsense that it wasn't "proven" and therefore couldn't be mentioned is absurd. By that standard half of the stories we discuss wouldn't be allowed to be mentioned. JFK assassination anyone?

The Russian collusion story wasn't proven, especially the Steele Dossier part of it. The Russian bounty story wasn't proven. And yet those weren't banned. Just until two days ago Facebook banned people from mentioning the "lab leak" theory behind the pandemic.

Something seriously wrong is going on here but it appears that if the "right" people are being silenced it's okay. It's not. Today it's them, tomorrow it's you.

Corrupt criminal Bill Barr covered up the Russian collusion that the criminal Trump campaign was involved in. Paul Manafort gave polling data to the Russians and the Senate Intelligence Committee already confirmed the Russian collusion from their bipartisan investigation....that is clear collusion.

US says Russia was given Trump campaign polling data in 2016
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-paul-manafort-russia-campaigns-konstantin-kilimnik-d2fdefdb37077e28eba135e21fce6ebf

U.S. Senate report goes beyond Mueller to lay bare Trump campaign's Russia links
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/18/donald-trump-us-senate-report-russia-campaign
   

[Matt Grantham]

Wouldn't hunter deny it was his if that was the case And personal video in all compromising positions? someone else was able to acquire that in your scenario/

[Matt Grantham]

U.S. Senate report goes beyond Mueller to lay bare Trump campaign's Russia links
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/18/donald-trump-us-senate-report-russia-campaign
   

 Then why did Mueller in his congressional testimony at the end of his investigation, say there was no evidence of any collusion or conspiracy between the Trump administration and Russia

[Jon Banks]

Not surprising that Biden’s inquiry into the origins of Covid came back inconclusive.

 Summary of the ODNI report - 

https://www.axios.com/report-covid-origin-inconclusive-900d4340-2267-4eba-a9ec-e2fc951ff921.html

COVID's origin is still inconclusive, according to an unclassified intelligence report publicly released Friday.

Driving the news: Chinese officials had no knowledge of the virus prior to its initial outbreak, according to the report, though it doesn't rule out the lab leak or animal transmission theories. The intelligence community "remains divided."

What they're saying: COVID was "probably" not developed as a biological weapon or genetically engineered, but the two dominant theories — that it came from a lab leak or was naturally transmitted from an animal — remain plausible, per the report.

[Tom Scully]

The same pattern applied to the Media’s coverage of Russiagate too.

And those of us who are JFK assassination skeptics or CT’ers could say that that kind of behavior in the media has gone on for decades.

Whether it’s Covid, Iraq’s WMDs, Climate Science, or the JFK murder investigations, the Mainstream Media for some reason tends to try to limit the boundaries of what is legit to discuss and tries to discredit narratives or ideas that they don’t like or that goes against mainstream consensus.

Because the Media hates Trump so much, it was easy to dismiss the Lab Leak theory as just another conspiracy theory when he was President.

Now that a few mainstream reporters and some scientists have endorsed the idea that the theory is at least plausible and Trump is no longer President, the media’s consensus has shifted.

Because I have kept an open mind from day one, I never ruled out the Lab Leak as a plausible event even while I think a natural origin is the most likely explanation…

Not surprising that Biden’s inquiry into the origins of Covid came back inconclusive.

 Summary of the ODNI report -

https://www.axios.com/report-covid-origin-inconclusive-900d4340-2267-4eba-a9ec-e2fc951ff921.html

Jon, the media never "hated Trump so much". He exploited it. That is the main "talent" of his group of criminals. Considering what you've expressed just in the two posts I quoted, if I were you, I'd be more concerned about what Trump has done to exploit my (IOW, your) bias, generally.

Please post examples of media misreporting about Trump's denial of Russia's influence in the 2016 election and of his obstruction of justice. He became the President, not Clinton, yet the tenor of your post is that he is somehow "the victim."

Two views on media coverage of 2016 - Brookings Institutionhttps://www.brookings.edu › blog › fixgov › 2016/08/29
Aug 29, 2016 — Whether it's the free advertising at every newspaper, cable news channel and news-oriented blog credited with propelling Donald Trump; whether ...

If Clinton loses, blame the email controversy and the mediahttps://www.latimes.com › opinion › op-ed › la-oe-patt...
Sep 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton has suffered far more negative press coverage than her rival, mostly because of her email issues.

Conservative media dominated coverage of 2016 campaign ...https://news.harvard.edu › gazette › story › 2017/09 › c...
Sep 8, 2017 — If you thought that media coverage during the 2016 presidential election seemed, more often than not, to boost Donald Trump and criticize ...

Studies agree: Media gorged on Hillary Clinton email coveragehttps://www.washingtonpost.com › blogs › 2017/08/25
Aug 25, 2017 — The next time someone argues that the media was all-in for Clinton, cite these findings.

Hillary Clinton's emails got as much front-page coverage in 6 ...https://www.vox.com › 2017/12 › study-media-2016-el...
Dec 7, 2017 — James Comey. Wisconsin. But two researchers, David Rothschild and Duncan Watts, took on an in-depth analysis of the mainstream media that will ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li-Meng_Yan
Li-Meng Yan or Yan Limeng (simplified Chinese: 闫丽梦; traditional Chinese: 閆麗夢) is a Chinese virologist,[citation needed] known for publications and interviews alleging that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a Chinese government laboratory. These publications have been widely criticised by the scientific community.[3][4][5][6]

In April 2020, she fled to the United States. She co-authored several preprint research papers[a] claiming that SARS-CoV-2 was "produced in a laboratory."[8][9][10] According to scientific reviewers from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Yan's paper offered "contradictory and inaccurate information that does not support their argument,"[3] while reviewers from Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 criticised her preprints as not demonstrating "sufficient scientific evidence to support its claims."[4]
......
Political links
Yan's preprint was promoted by the Rule of Law Society,[23] a political organisation affiliated with Steve Bannon, former Trump strategist, and Guo Wengui, an expatriate Chinese billionaire, in November 2018.[6][24] The organisation's stated intent was to investigate "Chinese corruption and financially support victims of the regime."[17][18][25] The Rule of Law Society had not previously published scientific or medical research.[17] Yan previously appeared on Bannon's "War Room" podcast.[19][17] The lack of financial disclosure in Yan's papers was described as a lapse in ethical transparency by Dr. Adam Lauring, particularly when publishing "what are essentially conspiracy theories that are not founded in fact".[4]

In November 2020, The New York Times reported that Yan's "trajectory was carefully crafted" by Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui, who played to rising anti-Chinese sentiments, with the goal of bringing down China's government and distracting from the Trump administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.[26] The Times article pointed out that Guo and Bannon arranged for Yan to fly first class to the United States, arranged lodging, coached her on media appearances, and arranged interviews for her with conservative media hosts such as Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson.[26]