As we told you earlier this week, an IG report found “insufficient evidence” to support former Florida health worker Rebekah Jones’ (who the media continues to refer to as a “whistleblower” when in fact she was just spreading false narratives) claims that she was directed to falsify Covid numbers in the state.
That was all BS:
A prominent critic of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Covid response made “unsubstantiated” claims that state health officials had fired her because she refused to present manipulated data online, according to an inspector general’s report obtained by NBC News on Thursday.
The 27-page report from the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Inspector General said it found “insufficient evidence” to support Rebekah Jones’ accusations that she was asked to falsify Covid positivity rates or misrepresent them on the state’s dashboard she helped design. The report also “exonerated” officials accused by Jones of wrongdoing because they removed a data section from the website to ensure that private individual health information was not released publicly.
The independent report paints a portrait of an employee who did not understand public health policy or the significance of epidemiological data, did not have high-level access to crucial information and leveled claims that made professional health officials “skeptical.”
The Miami Herald reporter who was among those helping provide Jones’ initial claims with legitimacy noted the IG report:
The joys of endless computer woes. At last, here's the story. Report: ‘Insufficient evidence’ to prove whistleblower’s claim state manipulated COVID data https://t.co/6dg1C68V6p
— Mary Ellen Klas (@MaryEllenKlas) May 28, 2022
At that point, the New York Post’s Karol Markowicz spotted a dragging in progress:
You have to read this dragging thread by Charles Cooke in a British accent. https://t.co/nfmUNyAnUg
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) May 28, 2022
National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke wasn’t about to let the Miami Herald reporter or her paper get away with it that easily:
Local news expert, can you explain to me why the Miami Herald ran a breathless editorial after Jones *applied* for whistleblower status—pretending, absurdly, that it was “a win”—but has not run an editorial on the actual case, which she lost? https://t.co/9sEXB9ePCg
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 28, 2022
Maybe we should just assume those questions to be rhetorical in nature, but Cooke wasn’t finished:
And can you explain why I managed to contextualize that application correctly in a blog post I wrote on a plane last May, but why the Miami Herald did not—and apparently still cannot—get it right? How does this intersect with, in your words, the “decline of local news”?
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 28, 2022
Such is the state of modern “journalism.”
Your paper spent two years laundering Jones’s lies. It laundered her initial lies. It laundered her lies about lying. It laundered her lies about the whistleblower process. It’s still doing it; your article yesterday says DeSantis fired her. It’s been a disgraceful performance.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 28, 2022
OOF.
How did this claim get past an editor? It’s non-responsive. The claim was that she was asked to edit the raw data. She wasn’t, and couldn’t have been. In return, she says “but I had a copy!” That’s like me saying I can repaint the original Mona Lisa because I have a photograph. pic.twitter.com/l67W2T7Jat
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 28, 2022
We’ll wait for answers to those questions… probably for a long time.
🔥🔥🔥 thread https://t.co/wsxAMmTQrs
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) May 28, 2022
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