Did Pandemic Originate In Wuhan Lab? Media About Face Demonstrates ‘Lack Of Accountability’

NEW YORK (VINnews) — During the entire course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mainstream media has nonchalantly dismissed the notion that the pandemic could have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. No real scientific data supported the media’s denial of this theory but the fact that the media’s nemesis, former President Donald Trump, had touted this theory was enough for the media to debunk it. Moreover the need to maintain politically correct ties with China engendered a gentle, unprofessional approach by the media which glossed over this crucial issue rather than investigating it.

So of course, once the lab-leak theory began to circulate in January, 2020, China’s relations with the United States paid off, and the entire liberal media furiously peddled the ‘natural origin’ theory, while boldly proclaiming the lab origin hypothesis a ‘debunked conspiracy theory.’

Suddenly, in the last two weeks, the media made an incredible about face in the wake of Senator(R-KY) Rand Paul’s astonishing revelation that the NIH was funding US research of viruses within the Wuhan lab itself. Paul interrogated a redfaced Anthony Fauci over this and over the possibility that the virus may have originated in Wuhan, which Fauci did not deny. This was followed by a Wall Street Journal report claiming that three workers at the Wuhan lab had been hospitalized in November 2019 with COVID-19 symptoms – well before the disease spread to other people in the city.

These pieces of information were enough for a game-changing approach from the media, from skepticism and dismissal to active promotion of the lab theory, prompting journalist Drew Holden to tweet: “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.”

Holden compared headlines from the New York Times in May 2020 and May 2021 and described the difference as “stark.”

In the first report the theory is dismissed as a “fringe theory” while the second one urges “an open mind” regarding the possibility of the pandemic emanating from a lab.

Holden exposed the double standard at CNN as well. The news outlet had referred just two months ago to the theory that COVID emanated from a Chinese lab as “something out of a comic book” but in a recent article it said that new research “furthers debate on pandemic origins.”

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

Holden found the same double standard in the Washington Post which had accused Senator Tom Cotton of repeating a theory “already debunked” and then proceeded to discuss the “vexing theory” as if it were now fact.

Holden concluded that media outlets had relied on the denials of the Wuhan lab itself rather than doing any serious investigating and his assertion is that they did not want to give credence to the theory simply because it was actively adopted by President Trump.

Holden concludes that “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.”