What do we learn about the American political and media establishment after the history of the origins of the coronavirus pandemic appears to be radically changing?
The Wall Street Journal reports on new developments from the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology. There’s more about the researchers who « got so sick in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously unpublished US intelligence report. » The newspaper’s coverage intensifies efforts to further investigate the causes of coronavirus disease.
We are also learning and learning about institutional rot and the triumph of political ideology over analysis.
As we wait, will published daily more facts on the origins of the pandemic that resulted in the deaths of 3.4 million people worldwide, including around 500,000 in the US It is without a doubt the most important story of our time. Part of the job of citizens, journalists and responsible political leaders is to question assumptions.
Until recently, anyone who dared could suspect that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China – a theory that contradicted the Chinese Communist Party’s approved version that someone ate or came into contact with an infected bat from a « wet market » – dismissed as dangerous, perhaps insane.
Some, like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, were smeared by the Washington media as wild-eyed Republican conspiracy theorists infected with a highly contagious political virus that needed to be eradicated so others could not catch it.
« Senator Tom Cotton reiterates the fringe theory of the coronavirus Origins, « read a New York Times headline in February 2020, saying such theories would » resonate with those who consider China a threat See « .
And there have been many similar ones, including in the Washington Post, headed » Experts Debunk Marginal Theory Linking China’s Coronavirus to Weapons Research « .
But now the worm is spinning with coverage from the Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers fell ill, raising questions about whether the COVID-19 virus that has destroyed lives and economies escaped this lab.
A May 5 article in a science journal by Nicholas Wade, a former science journalist for the New York Times, looks at the genesis and asks: « Did humans or nature open Pandora’s box in Wuhan? »
Why was it so important to stick to the wet market theory and demonize others? Was it that former President Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, hinted that the intelligence services led them to believe it came from a laboratory?
The pandemic was the story of election year. And the Democrats used it to hammer Trump’s campaign. COVID-19, said Jane Fonda, was « God’s gift to the left ».
« When this was first reported and discussed a few months after the pandemic began, then-President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested evidence for seeing that this was done in a laboratory. And they also suggested that it wasn’t made public on purpose. But they refused to release the evidence that showed what it was. And because of this, it immediately became political. I think this was example 1,000 when the Trump administration learned that if you kept burning your credibility, especially in an election year, people won’t believe you right away. However, that does not mean that it is not worth discussing. «
It was Maggie Haberman of the New York Times twisting on explaining why she, along with most other journalists, opposed the possibility of any other origin story.
President Joe Biden insists he should has a good personal relationship with China, though somewhat hampered by his son Hunter’s business relationships there. Whether all of this will give the President leverage in reshaping US-China relations is best left to foreign policy analysts.
The virus origin reset provides an exceptional opportunity for the Washington establishment press to reflect, rethink, and reevaluate its role as Kemalist guardians. But will the established political media culture take advantage of this reset?
These are the same media outlets who treated President Barack Obama as a demigod, and in 2009 many raved about his peace nob elpreis, although it had only been in use for months. Obsessed with hopium, all the better to worship Obama, the establishment was deeply shocked when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016.
That was the year of the uprising against the establishment. I knew she wasn’t going to win. But I haven’t been in Washington, where it’s impossible to see clearly.
The New York Times may no longer be the newspaper of the records, but it is the establishment newspaper. Its editor, Dean Baquet, recognized the paper’s mistake in missing out on what was going on in the country after Trump’s victory.
« When I have a mea culpa for journalists and journalists, we have to be much better out in the country Be and talk to different kinds of people than the people we talk to – especially if you happen to happen to be a New York-based news organization – and remind us that New York is not the real world. “
Such a critical self-examination only lasted a few weeks. Because instead of researching it and understanding the nation and the division between the mainstream Washington press and millions of Americans, the Democratic Party gave the media fresh meat to empathize with: Hillary Clinton was wrongly defeated, because Trump was a tool of the Russians! The Russian collusion fantasy has been beating like a drum for years, and although it hissed as a criminal matter, it was politically effective. Pulitzer prizes were given, and in general, those who perpetuated this great lie never really wanted to investigate how it was played.
And then came COVID-19, which couldn’t have come from a Chinese laboratory. That story may have helped Trump and the Republicans by shifting focus to China, which was really to blame. That couldn’t be allowed.
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