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

[Jon Banks]

That's most definitely true as I see it too and part of the failure to fairly report on the "lab leak" theory, to dismiss it almost immediately, was caused by this. If the right wing media is so influential then why was this lab leak theory essentially dismissed for so long? But it was Senator Cotton more than Trump who was raising this question well before Trump did. It wasn't just anti-Trump thinking that led to this.

But I think as Yglesias points out it goes beyond the dislike of Trump (who was a lousy president who deserved most, not all, but most of the negative press). The question he asks is do we have a media, e.g,. the major media entities, that promote a "false consensus" on critical issues because they "talk to themselves" and live in bubbles where that consensus is re-enforced? There isn't sufficient self-examination of that "consensus" view?

I think it was certainly true on this theory. To be non-partisan, it was also true on the Iraq WMD question about 20 years ago.  And it was also true, in a different way, 55+ years ago with the media's reporting on the JFK assassination. There wasn't much criticism of the Warren Report at that time. It changed over the years; but this was a pre-Vietnam/pre-Watergate media that was much too willing to accept the government's statements.

I don't know if any of you use Twitter. I do and I follow a lot of Media personalities.

The way they talk amongst their peers on social media is part of what drives and reinforces consensus around certain Media narratives.

Declaring certain inconvenient narratives as "rightwing" almost always gets Liberal media personalities to be dismissive.

The Hunter Biden stories (shady Ukraine and China business deals) are a perfect example. Most of the Media didn't want to address the leaks from his laptop because they were afraid it could help Trump. But after the election, Hunter confirmed that the DOJ is investigating him so it was a legit news story prior to the election regardless of whether or not it hurt Joe Biden or helped Trump.

On social media, most of the Liberal Media personalities dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop leaks as "Russian disinfo" or potentially false information. 

[Jerry Organ]

On social media, most of the Liberal Media personalities dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop leaks as "Russian disinfo" or potentially false information.

I can't find where it's been determined the laptop was Hunter's and that nothing was done to its contents while it was out of his possession.

The computer repair shop owner is John Paul Mac Isaac, an avid Trump supporter, who sued Twitter for $500,000,000 last December. So much for their love of free speech.

[Jon Banks]

I can't find where it's been determined the laptop was Hunter's and that nothing was done to its contents while it was out of his possession.

The computer repair shop owner is John Paul Mac Isaac, an avid Trump supporter, who sued Twitter for $500,000,000 last December. So much for their love of free speech.

Hunter literally said recently that the Laptop “may” be his.

The DEA found a second Laptop belonging to Hunter during a drug bust of a doctor in Massachusetts.

The Delaware repair shop guy’s story is weird but so far, everything he has said checks out. No one can argue that he isn’t credible or that the FBI didn’t take the Laptop into custody. He literally has a receipt from the FBI’s Baltimore office.

Granted, people SHOULD be skeptical of the NY Post and Rudy Giuliani but the Center-Left and Liberal Media’s disinterest in even reporting on the stuff that was confirmed as accurate was a bad look in terms of proving that they’re not totally biased…

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Hunter literally said recently that the Laptop “may” be his.

The DEA found a second Laptop belonging to Hunter during a drug bust of a doctor in Massachusetts.

The Delaware repair shop guy’s story is weird but so far, everything he has said checks out. No one can argue that he isn’t credible or that the FBI didn’t take the Laptop into custody. He literally has a receipt from the FBI’s Baltimore office.

Granted, people SHOULD be skeptical of the NY Post and Rudy Giuliani but the Center-Left and Liberal Media’s disinterest in even reporting on the stuff that was confirmed as accurate was a bad look in terms of proving that they’re not totally biased…

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.

[Jerry Organ]

Hunter literally said recently that the Laptop “may” be his.

That's quite a cherry-pick, for a fellow who's "on to" the media doing deceitful things.

    "Was that your laptop?" she asked.
         "For real, I don't know," Hunter replied.
    "I know. But you know that, this isn’t ..."
         "But my point is, I really don't know. The answer is, that's the truthful answer."
    "You don't know, yes or no, if the laptop was yours?"
         "I don't have any idea. No idea whether or not …"
    "So, could have been yours?"
         "Of course, certainly," Hunter said.

The DEA found a second Laptop belonging to Hunter during a drug bust of a doctor in Massachusetts.

The Delaware repair shop guy’s story is weird but so far, everything he has said checks out. No one can argue that he isn’t credible or that the FBI didn’t take the Laptop into custody. He literally has a receipt from the FBI’s Baltimore office.

Granted, people SHOULD be skeptical of the NY Post and Rudy Giuliani but the Center-Left and Liberal Media’s disinterest in even reporting on the stuff that was confirmed as accurate was a bad look in terms of proving that they’re not totally biased…

You're talking about hindsight. Last fall, all they had to work with was the Giuliani "Four Seasons" sideshow.

[Jerry Organ]

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.

Isn't this really about Right-Wingers wanting protection for their ongoing, increasingly-hostile demeaning comments about blacks, ethics, women and the poor?

[Jon Banks]

That's quite a cherry-pick, for a fellow who's "on to" the media doing deceitful things.

    "Was that your laptop?" she asked.
         "For real, I don't know," Hunter replied.
    "I know. But you know that, this isn’t ..."
         "But my point is, I really don't know. The answer is, that's the truthful answer."
    "You don't know, yes or no, if the laptop was yours?"
         "I don't have any idea. No idea whether or not …"
    "So, could have been yours?"
         "Of course, certainly," Hunter said.

You're talking about hindsight. Last fall, all they had to work with was the Giuliani "Four Seasons" sideshow.

The Wall Street Journal and Fox News did what every other journalist could've done which was, contact people who were referenced in the emails and text massages and interview them.

They were able to independently confirm the authenticity of the data that they reported on. Although we still don't know for certain that it was from Hunter's laptop, no other explanation for how his data was obtained has been given by Biden's legal team. They never alleged that he had been Hacked or that his computer was stolen.

There's no good excuse for the rest of the Media to have ignored the story. Probably the worst example of their bias in the Trump era.

[Jon Banks]

The former NY Times Covid reporter explains why he didn't address the Lab Leak theories until recently:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Lab-Leak Theory

"The experts all agreed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not a deliberate weaponization of a previously known virus and that it had no obvious signs of lab manipulation (more details below). They noted that blood sampling showed that brief “spillovers” of animal viruses into humans happen often without causing large outbreaks. Therefore, they argued, the odds were that this was another virus that got lucky, like SARS and MERS and the 2009 pandemic flu: it had dwelled long enough inside a civet or camel or pig or something to infect human-like cells, and then had hit the big city.

For about a year, that was the general wisdom among science writers. The “lab-leak theory” migrated back to the far right where it had started — championed by the folks who brought us Pizzagate, the Plandemic, Kung Flu, Q-Anon, Stop the Steal, and the January 6 Capitol invasion. It was tarred by the fact that everyone backing it seemed to hate not just Democrats and the Chinese Communist Party, but even the Chinese themselves. It spawned racist rumors like “Chinese labs sell their dead experimental animals in food markets.”

https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-lab-leak-theory-f4f88446b04d