Last week, Thread King Drew Holden took a look back at the media’s coverage of the lab-leak hypothesis, from a time before GOP Sen. Tom Cotton’s “conspiracy theory” started to look like a pretty viable scenario, actually, for the COVID19 pandemic’s origin.
This week, now that the lab-leak theory has suddenly become credible …
Fact Checker | Timeline: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible https://t.co/rA8oJbQajT
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 25, 2021
Holden is shining a glaring spotlight on the media’s attempts to gaslight and cover their tracks after so shamelessly peddling baseless narratives in the name of embarrassing Tom Cotton and, ultimately, Donald Trump:
🧵THREAD🧵
That the Covid pandemic could’ve leaked from a lab in Wuhan went from terrible, racist conspiracy theory to plausible overnight for the mainstream media, without a shred of accountability.
If you don’t believe me, look at these stories side-by-side, then vs. now⤵️
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
Strap in for this one … it’s really something:
You may remember that much of the really bad coverage was focused on @SenTomCotton’s suggestion that we better understand the potential for a lab leak from Wuhan.
The difference in framing here from @nytimes between May 2020 and May 2021 is…stark. pic.twitter.com/dr5kPPbq3a
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
But it wasn’t just NYT. There’s a lot of ammo from @CNN, too.
Not even two months ago, they ran a piece writing off the lab leak theory as “like something out of a comic book.”
Yesterday, the tone had changed, without any reference to their own role in the previous debate. pic.twitter.com/O2VMNayPuN
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
But if you go back further, @CNN’s coverage gets even worse.
Early in 2020, they ran CCP talking points suggesting it was all a political tactic based on “disinformation.”
A little over a year later, CNN is asking the same questions President Trump and his team were panned for. pic.twitter.com/Z4DCkl1zSG
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
@ChrisCillizza has been a key voice for @CNN on this. In February 2020, he cited a CNN factchecker who concluded you can “say that didn’t happen” about the lab leak.
Yesterday, he seemed baffled that Dr. Fauci wasn’t entirely on his side anymore.
So much for “trust the science” pic.twitter.com/pIStY6BZmw
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
I can’t say this enough. In early 2020, @washingtonpost accused @SenTomCotton of “fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory repeatedly debunked by experts” for asking the same questions the Post’s reporting is currently asking. pic.twitter.com/iZ5tG4ELdb
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
And for some reason @washingtonpost’s timeline of events just so happens to omit their own “fact check” of the lab leak theory from April 2020 that concluded “the balance of the scientific evidence strongly suggests the conclusion that the new coronavirus emerged from nature.” pic.twitter.com/eP4RmJ6mAL
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
@politico had a quicker about-face than most. While they decried that the Wuhan lab was “at the center of conspiracy theories about the pandemic’s origin,” in March 2021 they resurfaced worries about “risky coronavirus experiments” from 2018.
Wonder why “no one listened.” pic.twitter.com/oEZg12Ej9B
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
Much of the problem originally was that so many outlets relied on less than trustworthy sources – like the lab itself – to reject the lab leak theory & render it a “conspiracy theory.”
Even @Reuters, who doesn’t usually make the threads, did this. It was unbelievably pervasive. pic.twitter.com/ulJGkxrx22
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
I don’t know how else to put it. @NPR was awful about this one.
In April 2020, the story was “scientists debunk lab accident theory” but in March 2021 the idea suddenly “takes on new life”.
Did anyone consider who killed the original theory? I have an idea. pic.twitter.com/KSjoJF4ZSO
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
I’ve talked often about how the media has an enormous power in shaping narratives through framing.
Here’s an example from @thehill. Trump is portrayed as acting in bad faith (“efforts to blame China for the virus”) and then that framing gets jettisoned when no longer necessary. pic.twitter.com/IdqDyXjhoO
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
For @BBCNews, the lab leak theory went from a conspiracy theory on par with China’s suggestion that the US created the virus to “all hypotheses are on the table” without an ounce of self awareness. pic.twitter.com/RAA6KRR6zE
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
Again, why did no one at @BusinessInsider stop to consider whether the director of the lab that had just been accused (by the leader of the free world) of starting a once in a century plague might not be telling the entire truth?
Seems something changed since. pic.twitter.com/b11DJ5jpEH
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
Unfortunately there was a lot to work with for @BusinessInsider. I couldn’t help but include these two pieces that haven’t exactly aged perfectly. pic.twitter.com/H5yWMXWnTS
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
The extent to which the mainstream media trusted the lab in Wuhan at their word is jarring. @FortuneMagazine was just one of many.
But it’s also impossible to ignore – both here and in general – that the contrast is always between Wuhan and President Trump. More on that later. pic.twitter.com/7IKDTgUF6s
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
The worst part of all of this (except for the damage to public trust, of course) is the absolute lack of accountability.
The media totally blew it on this story in ways that could make it less likely that we ever get to the bottom of this. Without offering so much as an apology.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
There have been a couple of exceptions. The best in my estimation is this piece from @jonathanchait that tracks through some of the bad coverage in a way that doesn’t make excuses: https://t.co/0YPvq3RW6U
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
But broadly, the old reporting went down the memoryhole and has already been incinerated. No lessons will be learned. No improvements will be made. This will happen again.
And it will continue to be everyday Americans who suffer the impact of bad information.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
My (unsolicited) postmortem: the idea that President Trump could’ve been right about something this important w/o definitive public proof was something journos and newsrooms simply could not bring themselves to take seriously.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
Instead, because they hated Trump so much, they preferred to trust a lab run by shadowy hostile autocrats who had every incentive to lie (and long history of lying) about something that could turn out to be the most consequential coverup in living memory.
That’s…not good.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
But these are precisely the sorts of blind spots we should expect from a collection of people who all share the same worldview. Until that changes – until we get more perspectives/people who don’t have those blind spots – all of this will continue to get worse.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
And these aren’t all the bad takes. I did another thread last week with even more, it’s just that not every outlet has done an about face (yet).
I have a feeling this thread will get longer, unfortunately. https://t.co/ebRLQFnUP8
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
We have that feeling, too. Just call it a hunch.
And if you haven’t already, read this piece from @redsteeze that urges us not to let this one go by unremarked. https://t.co/6qz1e4qgMJ
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 25, 2021
Probably goes without saying but, after all of this, Biden’s decision to shut down the probe into the lab leak theory doesn’t look great. https://t.co/33TPtthv3i
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 26, 2021
Also this piece and thread by @mattyglesias is really good. https://t.co/ICRKoyHkkt
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 26, 2021
But a Drew Holden thread that takes no prisoners is the best.
Again and again and again: https://t.co/pekklLeekQ
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 26, 2021
One of his best threads yet. https://t.co/L3VwAVUN2Y
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 26, 2021
Wow! Some of your best work yet.
— Lois Cayce (@LBC1983) May 26, 2021
This might be @DrewHolden360's greatest thread ever. https://t.co/bp7wj0bMSt
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) May 26, 2021
Be advised, media: Drew Holden is watching you. And you will not be spared.
Drew Holden of House Twitter, Keeper of Receipts, Breaker of Narratives, Father of Threads. 🐉 https://t.co/Pfd6PY22Yd
— Brian Sack (@brian_sack) May 26, 2021
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