{"id":543066,"date":"2021-05-27T14:21:26","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T18:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=543066"},"modified":"2021-05-27T14:21:29","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T18:21:29","slug":"from-impossible-to-credible-how-the-legacy-media-is-desperately-spinning-their-wuhan-lab-flip-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/from-impossible-to-credible-how-the-legacy-media-is-desperately-spinning-their-wuhan-lab-flip-flop\/","title":{"rendered":"From \u2018Impossible\u2019 To \u2018Credible\u2019: How The Legacy Media Is Desperately Spinning Their Wuhan Lab Flip-Flop"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffrom-impossible-to-credible-how-the-legacy-media-is-desperately-spinning-their-wuhan-lab-flip-flop%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=543066&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1177648381.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>After spending the last 18 months <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/10-times-the-media-slammed-the-wuhan-lab-origin-theory-as-a-conspiracy\">belittling those who questioned<\/a> whether COVID-19 may have leaked from a laboratory in China, the media have begun aggressively backpedaling, claiming that their newfound support for an investigation into the virus\u2019 origins hinges on \u201cnew information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet their justification is hard to identify, given that they cite virtually nothing that was not public information nearly a year ago. The only meaningful change is the change in the White House.<\/p>\n<p>Like many in the legacy media, The Washington Post\u2019s fact checker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/will-the-media-fact-check-joe-bidens-grandpop-like-they-did-tim-scotts\">Glenn Kessler<\/a> made a stunning about-face on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Last May, Kessler had publicly <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/glennkesslerwp\/status\/1256267931220049920\">chided<\/a> Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) for raising the possibility of a lab origin, lecturing the senator that \u201cit is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab.\u201d He accused Cruz of missing \u201cthe many interviews with actual scientists\u201d that had been published on the origins of the novel coronavirus. \u201cWe deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves,\u201d Kessler flexed.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"9.5096774193548\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I fear <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tedcruz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@tedcruz<\/a> missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TprMnaHSZL\">https:\/\/t.co\/TprMnaHSZL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GlennKesslerWP\/status\/1256267931220049920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 1, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>On Tuesday, Kessler walked the path most taken, following a host of fellow journalists by posting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2021\/05\/25\/timeline-how-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-suddenly-became-credible\/\">story<\/a>&nbsp;titled \u201cTimeline: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>What new evidence?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Under the section titled \u201cnew evidence,\u201d Kessler admits that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/seven-year-covid-trail-revealed-l5vxt7jqp\">last July 4<\/a>, The Times of London reported that a virus similar to COVID-19 \u2014 which had killed three men in an abandoned copper mine in 2012 \u2014 had been taken to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The miners became the subject of a major study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpubh.2020.581569\/full\">published<\/a> last October in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7606707\/\">journal<\/a>, Frontiers in Public Health.<\/p>\n<p>He padded this out by noting that, in March, \u201c60 Minutes\u201d aired a \u201creport on lingering questions about the origins of the coronavirus.\u201d In May, former New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade \u201creview[ed] the evidence.\u201d A week later, 18 scientists signed a public letter declaring that \u201ctheories of accidental release from a lab \u2026 remain viable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But evidence has to exist before it is reviewed, and questions and theories have to be posed before they can linger or remain viable. It appears that the only thing that made the theory suddenly \u201ccredible\u201d for Kessler is that other legacy media outlets stopped ridiculing it.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, last May, CNN <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CNN\/status\/1257964992030277632\">regurgitated<\/a> the talking points of the Chinese Communist Party, insisting President Trump and the Republican Party promoted the theory out of political expedience.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"10.626262626263\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe urge the US to stop spreading disinformation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>China says recent accusations by the Trump administration that the Covid-19 pandemic originated in a lab in Wuhan are a political strategy for Republicans ahead of the 2020 presidential election. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/noJa7g8n9f\">https:\/\/t.co\/noJa7g8n9f<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CNN (@CNN) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CNN\/status\/1257964992030277632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 6, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>On Monday, CNN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/05\/23\/politics\/us-intelligence-report-wuhan-lab-researchers-coronavirus-origin\/index.html\">reported<\/a> that \u201cnew information on Wuhan researchers\u2019 illness furthers debate on pandemic origins.\u201d Yet the story\u2019s second sentence made clear that the information is anything but \u201cnew.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA State Department fact sheet released by the Trump administration in January said that the researchers had&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/02\/06\/health\/wuhan-coronavirus-timeline-fast-facts\/index.html\">gotten sick in autumn 2019<\/a>&nbsp;but did not go as far as to say they had been hospitalized,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>The State Department <a href=\"https:\/\/2017-2021.state.gov\/fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhan-institute-of-virology\/index.html\">announced<\/a> on January 15 that \u201cseveral researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli\u2019s public claim that there was \u2018zero infection\u2019 among the WIV\u2019s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny credible inquiry into the origin of the virus must include interviews with these researchers and a full accounting of their previously unreported illness,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n<p>CNN\u2019s new report noted that its \u201cnew information\u201d adds only the detail that the lab workers were hospitalized, and \u201cthe intelligence community still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CNN\u2019s competitor, MSNBC, encapsulated the change in one brief onscreen exchange.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor most of the last year-and-a-half, the idea that it may have leaked from a Chinese lab was seen as an unfounded conspiracy theory,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/stephanie-ruhle\/watch\/u-s-hasn-t-ruled-out-wuhan-lab-accident-as-origin-for-covid-19-113181765539\">intoned<\/a> host Stephanie Ruhle on Tuesday, \u201cbut that may be changing.\u201d NBC reporter Ken Dilanian opened the segment by saying, \u201cBack in January, the Trump State Department, on its way out the door, put out a fact sheet where they said that the U.S. had determined that several researchers at this Wuhan Institute of Virology had become sick in the fall with COVID-like symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut that was dismissed at the time, because it was the Trump administration,\u201d Dilanian admitted. \u201cBut in fact, it was based on intelligence, Stephanie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For once, MSNBC speaks for a large constituency: Much of the media have confessed their anti-Trump bias affected their coverage of the deadly global pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The prestige media have serially blamed Donald Trump and other Republicans for their lack of curiosity, their investigative inertia, and their slack-jawed credulity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s messaging was often accompanied by anti-Chinese rhetoric that made it easier for skeptics to ignore its claims,\u201d Kessler wrote. President Trump regularly spoke about making Beijing pay for concealing the virus and letting infected citizens travel the world, turning a local outbreak into an international pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman&nbsp;told CNN\u2019s \u201cNew Day\u201d on Monday that it was President Trump and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who \u201cmade this instantly political.\u201d She <a href=\"https:\/\/newsbusters.org\/blogs\/nb\/kristine-marsh\/2021\/05\/24\/cnn-nyts-haberman-blames-trump-media-discrediting-wuhan-lab-leak\">called<\/a> the media\u2019s dismissal of the theory \u201cexample 1,000 when the Trump administration learned when you burn your own credibility over and over again, people are not immediately going to believe you, especially in an election year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, some say the media\u2019s execrable performance provides a chance for journalists to review Journalism 101. One of the first advocates of the lab origin theory, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TomCottonAR\/status\/1397184039480696839\">tweeted<\/a>, \u201cOne lesson for the media is that self-interested denials from the Chinese Communist Party do not equal \u2018debunking.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"7.1413043478261\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">One lesson for the media is that self-interested denials from the Chinese Communist Party do not equal &#8220;debunking.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/awYnmSS01A\">pic.twitter.com\/awYnmSS01A<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TomCottonAR\/status\/1397184039480696839?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 25, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After spending the last 18 months belittling those who questioned whether COVID-19 may have leaked from a laboratory in China, the media have begun aggressively backpedaling, claiming that their newfound &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2313286,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1177648381.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"From \u2018Impossible\u2019 To \u2018Credible\u2019: How The Legacy Media Is Desperately Spinning Their Wuhan Lab Flip-Flop","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1177648381.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"From \u2018Impossible\u2019 To \u2018Credible\u2019: How The Legacy Media Is Desperately Spinning Their Wuhan Lab Flip-Flop","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2313286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}