{"id":545322,"date":"2021-05-29T14:20:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-29T18:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=545322"},"modified":"2021-05-29T14:20:45","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T18:20:45","slug":"graham-the-medias-embarrassing-incuriosity-about-wuhan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/graham-the-medias-embarrassing-incuriosity-about-wuhan\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAHAM: The Media\u2019s Embarrassing Incuriosity About Wuhan"},"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\">14<\/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%2Fgraham-the-medias-embarrassing-incuriosity-about-wuhan%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=545322&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\/1094F330-F3AE-44C6-A363-349B4DE9C2EF-1200x800-1.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Pardon the whiplash! It feels like the media suddenly decided the theory saying the deadly coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan is now considered plausible, when, in 2020, they aggressively dismissed it as a \u201cfringe theory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not a mystery why this happened. The Democrats thought the coronavirus was going to be that silver bullet that would remove former President Trump from office. Their arrogant belief that Trump was an ignoramus led them to shame anyone or any theory that Trump endorsed the year\u2019s biggest story. They were willing to embrace the supposed authority of communist China, the China-enabling World Health Organization, and the \u201cprevailing opinion\u201d of the science journals and magazines that endorsed Joe Biden for president.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, science doesn\u2019t operate on this principle. The \u201chard news\u201d business does.<\/p>\n<p>Washington Post \u201cfact-checker\u201d Glenn Kessler posted an article on May 25 titled \u201cHow the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible.\u201d Kessler\u2019s timeline suggested some media figures and media outlets, including two former New York Times science reporters and CBS \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d have been warming up to this once-\u201cdebunked\u201d thesis since Trump\u2019s defeat.<\/p>\n<p>He notes that Sen. Tom Cotton proclaimed during a Jan. 30, 2020, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing: \u201cThis coronavirus is a catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl for China. But actually, it\u2019s probably worse than Chernobyl, which was localized in its effect. The coronavirus could result in a global pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was even generous enough to say that Cotton \u201cfrom the start pointed to the lab\u2019s location in Wuhan, pressing China for answers, so the history books will reward him if he turns out to be right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What Kessler leaves unsaid is all the vicious media rhetoric against Cotton for his merely demanding China should have to answer for this. He does admit that \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s messaging was often accompanied by anti-Chinese rhetoric that made it easier for skeptics to ignore its claims.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy that was already debunked,\u201d warned a headline from his own Washington Post.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Conspiracy Origins,\u201d screamed The New York Times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTom Cotton is playing a dangerous game with his coronavirus speculation,\u201d wrote Chris Cillizza on CNN.com.<\/p>\n<p>Kessler also left out of his timeline his own tweet in which he called the theory \u201cvirtually impossible,\u201d dismissed Sen. Ted Cruz, and promoted his shop\u2019s explanatory video on Wuhan: \u201cI fear @tedcruz 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Liberal journalists \u201cdeal in facts\u201d \u2014 by asserting the theory is \u201cvirtually impossible.\u201d What happens when they suddenly reverse themselves? As Kessler demonstrates, even \u201cfact-checkers\u201d do a terrible job of actually apologizing or admitting what they said last year. They pretend like no one could Google it and post it on social media.<\/p>\n<p>This explicit reversal \u2014 this undebunking \u2014 exposes the ridiculousness of the media\u2019s assertion that they represent facts, truth, and science, and aren\u2019t emotionally blinded by Trump hatred. It also exposes the \u201cindependent fact-checkers\u201d and their clients such as Facebook who squashed this theory because the liberal knee jerked at every presidential utterance of \u201cChina virus\u201d and \u201cWuhan flu.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One easy way for the media to build trust with a larger readership is to dial down their arrogant belief that they know everything, especially regarding highly important matters on which we were woefully underinformed. Will this massive embarrassment cause them to change anything?<\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pardon the whiplash! It feels like the media suddenly decided the theory saying the deadly coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan is now considered plausible, when, in 2020, they &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1893668,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545322","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=545322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1893668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}