Columns, Media, Politics

The Covid Lab Leak is a Scandal of Media and Government Censorship

Below is my column in the New York Post on the Wall Street Journal revealing that the Department of Energy has concluded that Covid-19 likely originated from a Chinese lab. According to the report, American intelligence has found evidence to support the long-dismissed “lab theory.” This has led to another media “my bad” moment where news outlets are shrugging that the theory may not be a conspiracy or racist theory after all. As usual, there is little attention to the experts who were shredded for raising the theory or the reporters who insisted that this was a debunked conspiracy theory.

Here is the column:

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Energy Department has concluded that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak.

The conclusion is reportedly based on a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. Many will be exploring why the scientific evidence of a lab leak was so slow to emerge from intelligence agencies.

However, for my part, the most alarming aspect was the censorship, not the science.

There will continue to be a debate over the origins of COVID-19, but now there will be a debate.

For years, the media and government allied to treat anyone raising a lab theory as one of three possibilities: conspiracy theorist or racists or racist conspiracy theorists.

Academics joined this chorus in marginalizing anyone raising the theory. One study cited the theory as an example of “anti-Chinese racism” and “toxic white masculinity.”

As late as May 2021, the New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory as “racist.”

She embodies the model of the new “advocacy journalism” at the Times. Reporters who remained wedded to the dated view of objective journalism were purged from the ranks of The Times long ago.

Mandavilli and others made clear that reporters covering the theory were COVID’s little Bull Connors. She tweeted wistfully “someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here.”

However, one former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade chastised his former colleagues for ignoring the obvious evidence supporting a lab theory as well as Chinese efforts to arrest scientists and destroy evidence that could establish the origin.

Others in academia quickly joined the bandwagon to assure the public that there is no scientific basis for their theory, leaving only racist or politics as the motivation behind the theory. In early 2020, with little available evidence, two op-eds in The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine went all-in on the denial front.

The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”

We were also supposed to forget about massive payments from the Chinese government to American universities and grants of some of these writers to both Chinese interests or even the specific Wuhan lab.

No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him of repeating a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”

In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, dared to repeat the theory on Fox News, saying, “I can present solid scientific evidence . . . [that] it is a man-made virus created in the lab.” The left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her and gave her a “pants on fire rating.”

President Joe Biden accused Trump of fanning racism in his criticism of the Chinese government over the pandemic and his Administration reportedly shutdown the State Department investigation into the possible lab origins of the virus.

When Biden later revived an investigation into the origins, he was denounced as “sugar-coating Trump’s racism.”

The categorical rejection of the lab theory is only the latest media narrative proven to be false. The Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation,” the Lafayette Park “Photo Op” conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett case, the Migrant Whipping scandal.

On the lab theory, media like the Washington Post piled on senators like Cruz and Cotton for mentioning the lab theory only later to admit that it could be legitimate.

All of those experts and writers who were called racists or suspended by social media were simply forgotten in media coverage.

That is why this is really about censorship.

The media guaranteed that we did not have a full debate over the origins of the virus and attacked those who had the temerity to state the obvious that there was a plausible basis for suspecting the Wuhan lab.

None of this has diminished demands for more censorship. Even after Twitter admitted that it wrongly blocked The New York Post story before the 2020 election, Democratic senators responded by warning the company not to cut back on censorship and even demanded more censorship.

Recently, the Twitter Files revealed an extensive and secret FBI effort to censor citizens on social media.

This included undisclosed efforts by members like Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) to get Twitter to ban a columnist and target critics. In a House hearing, democratic leaders like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md). called for more censorship and opposed investigations into the censorship efforts.

These same figures in politics and media are just moving on to the next approved narrative.

President Biden previously called for more censorship and accused Big Tech of “killing people” by not censoring more views deemed “COVID misinformation.”

The opposite is true. By suppressing alternative scientific and policy views, the public was denied a full debate over mask efficacy, vaccine side effects, COVID origins and other important issues. Many of those questions are only being recognized as legitimate and worthy of debate.

Censorship does not, as President Biden claims, save lives.

It is more likely to cost lives by protecting approved views from challenge. It does not foster the truth any more than it fosters free speech. Whatever the origin of COVID-19 may be in China, the origins of our censorship scandal is closer to home.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School.

 

229 thoughts on “The Covid Lab Leak is a Scandal of Media and Government Censorship”

  1. Here is the elephant in the room question; Did China’s Government and/or their Military demand the US Media and US Government squash any information the Virus was the result of Gain of Function development (code for Bioweapon development) and accidentally or purposefully released from the Wuhan facility??????? I venture to say that Truth will be revealed!!!

  2. There is no satisfaction in hearing of this report. The people who condemned the theory and those who spoke of it are deaf, dumb, and blind to facts. It is only “THEIR” truth that matters.

    1. November 2019 I was recovering from a traumatic event and spent most my days online. I somehow even got access to the Johns Hopkins Covid tracking website. The pandemic had already started in China, but most American’s had no idea. As I recall it wasn’t until January 2020 that the American people were told about it. There was originally no controversy over the accepted fact that the disease had escaped from the Wuhan Lab and that the CCP allowed it to be exported internationally while trying to keep it contained to Wuhan inside China. Even the main virologist in Wuhan, known as “The Bat Lady”, admitted as much on camera (then she disappeared). Trump tried to stop it from entering this country, but the Democrats saw his travel ban as a leverage to use against him to paint him a racist, so the disinformation campaign went into overdrive. When it became clear that Dr. Fauci’s organization had funded the research that created the virus, the disinformation campaign went global as everyone remotely involved moved to keep their culpability from being exposed. And thus, the great mystery of where the pandemic originated was created,

  3. “The categorical rejection of the lab theory is only the latest media narrative proven to be false.”

    So at what point does the American public stop believing and trusting those who are so consistently wrong?

    At some point, those concerned about their about their own self-preservation have to say: You know what. That restaurant keeps poisoning customers. I don’t think I’m going there.

  4. Pardon my skepticism, but in these days of anti-China rage, nothing that comes out of the Biden administration, and certainly not from the usual anonymous suspects know collectively as “American intelligence,” is to be believed without a huge pound of salt. It took decades for the US media and government to turn this country against Russia, and we’re seeing the same technique with respect to China. When the economic and political powers in this country decide on an enemy, everyone must jump onboard, and they’ll use any sleazy, underhanded, dishonest and manipulative means to push their agenda.

  5. Where are the apologies from ATS and Svelaz, not for being wrong on the virus but for supporting censorship of those most accurate in their discussions about the Wuhan Virus?

    For example, Svelaz called it racist if the virus was named the China Flu or if one believed its creation was in the Wuhan lab.

    ATS did no better. Both were wrong on the Russia Hoax, the Steele Dossier, Ukraine, etc., and almost everything else. Both used distorted news sites that stretched the truth only to be wrong as time passed.

    I note, Svelaz continues posting mistruths without concern that what he says today conflicts with what he wrote yesterday. ATS, to his credit, has started to restrain himself.

    The way to show the emptiness of Svelaz is not by correcting him, though that is good for others to read, but is to ask him simple questions. Those questions reveal his copy-and-paste intellect, which lacks logic, knowledge, and common sense. He cannot respond to a logical sequence of questions.

    1. The mere mention of Svelaz and ATS grants them far too much credit of any kind.

      The best rule against bad speech it to far outweigh it with good speech.

      The exception to that rule is when dealing with known and proven Trolls…..and merely ignoring the Troll completely is the proven method to destroy the Troll.

      The old saw of “Who is the Fool…..the Fool or the Man that is arguing with the Fool?” applies to all things “Troll”.

      One can support Free Speech by doing nothing sometimes….as in just ignoring Trolls….no response to their drivel is the most effective method.

      1. What does one do when naive people listen to trolls?

        Ralph, in the past election, the media acted like a giant troll. Fetterman, totally unable to be a Senator, was elected solely on name recognition pushed by the trolls.

      2. Ralph,
        Hear! Hear!
        I do applaud S. Meyer, HullBobby, Steve, Karen S, Lin, TiT, et al for their efforts to debunk their misinformation, disinformation and outright lies.
        They have far more energy than I.
        I just scroll past.

        1. Knowledgeable people skim over your postings or don’t read them at all. Your posts are junk and represent a person without critical thinking skills. You utilize copy-and-paste with limited paraphrasing. Unfortunately for you and your lack of understanding, this attempt to steal another’s knowledge proves you ignorant because you don’t understand what the words mean, nor do you post them in the right places. If I had to correct everything you said, it would take pages of material.

            1. Svelaz, what is it you don’t understand? You errantly comment on my writing skills rather than what was written.

              That is a sign of intellectual failure.

    2. S. Meyer, starting with a bunch of lying? Really? Well I’m not totally surprised since it’s what you do on a daily basis.

      “For example, Svelaz called it racist if the virus was named the China Flu or if one believed its creation was in the Wuhan lab.”

      Yet you don’t cite verbatim what I said. Making claims you can’t back up is called lying.

      1. You made such statements. Here is one of the mildest.” those wanting to call it that have racist intentions behind it.” _Svelaz

        1. Anonymous (S. Meyer),

          You don’t he even provide any context to that sentience. How do we even know you are not making it up? Provide proof that I said what you claim. It’s obvious that you can’t because you are lying. Put the whole post so everyone can read it with the proper context.

          1. Svelaz, those are your words and are self explanatory. You want others to waste time dealing with a liar. I went through that many times and provided complete and accurate information. You pretended the data was never posted that was a lie. Today I won’t give you the time of day, but I will prove what I have proven before several times

            After I posted the requested links many times you never apologized or owned up to your lies and garbage.

            The past will haunt you on this blog.
            —
            Svelaz writes: “Again, you provided no documentation at all. You still haven’t. You “don’t feel obligated” because you never provided them in the first place and you can’t find it. You’re just covering for your BS claim.”

            Here are a couple of locations where I mentioned the address of the FDA report. This proves you don’t know what you are talking about.

            In the first one, I copied your statement, which is what is being argued about and is completely wrong,

            You said: “All the current vaccines have been granted full approval. ”

            Below is one of the many FDA postings I made. I believe others have posted FDA sites as well

            https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/03/new-york-announces-that-scarce-covid-19-treatments-will-be-prioritized-for-non-white-patients/comment-page-1/#comment-2148321

            In the second of the posts, I showed one of the reasons Pfizer might like this legal distinction.

            https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/03/new-york-announces-that-scarce-covid-19-treatments-will-be-prioritized-for-non-white-patients/comment-page-3/#comment-2148317

            I posted other things from the FDA with their addresses, and much of what I said was pure quotes from the FDA.

            This proves you to be what everyone knows you to be. You were wrong again, and it isn’t just about Covid. You have been proven wrong repeatedly on a multiplicity of subjects where proof has been provided. You deny the truth and the proof provided even when it is on the same official papers you have posted.

    3. S. Meyer: Indeed, Svelaz and his Anonymous counterpart may represent that percentage of persons with little ability to separate and discern propaganda from truth, -they simply rely on the same selective print, voice, and visual media to educate themselves. They then justify their superior opinions by quoting (“cut and pasting,” as you and others have referred to it) the very print, voice, and visual media that have so imbued/inoculated them with “selective” facts/information (“confirmation bias”).
      Even more alarming is that these sources demand, with an authoritative and condescending air, that anyone not so enlightened as they must be ridiculed and/or silenced.
      God bless a free press, free thought and expression, free autonomy for medical (“informed consent”) and educational choices, free pursuit of expanding our spheres of knowledge to the very periphery of available theories, so that we can critically regard them in order to reach our own studied conclusions, rather than be reduced to the lowest common denominator of the masses.
      I assume the responsibility of considering the entire spectrum of information and accept the consequences thereof for my ultimate conclusions. But I cannot do that if I am denied access to the entire spectrum.

      1. They must be ridiculed so that the naive recognize their stupidity and lies.

        “free autonomy for medical (“informed consent”)”

        Let me provide one example. When an HMO chooses the least expensive treatment and has doctors withhold information of better treatment, that is not informed consent.

        That autonomy is disappearing. Autonomy itself is disappearing.

        1. “When an HMO chooses the least expensive treatment and has doctors withhold information of better treatment, that is not informed consent.”

          If you are only relying on the doctor to provide you with the information you’re an idiot. Informed consent is a principle in medical ethics and medical law and media studies, that a patient must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about their medical care. YOU have to ASK questions to your doctor. Your doctor can give you all the pertinent information and no HMO tells their doctors to withhold information.

        1. Svelaz, your use of pat phrases paraphrased in a copy-and-paste manner is your only suit.

      3. S. Meyer: Indeed, Svelaz and his Anonymous counterpart may represent that percentage of persons with little ability to separate and discern propaganda from truth,

        Oh, they know the truth, but it is at odds with the leftist narrative. So the push the false narrative, rather than facts.

  6. It seemed obvious from those early WHO interviews that china was doing WHO’s talking. The fact that then the US followed is the terrifying aspect of this all.

    Back to your regularly scheduled anti-1st and anti-2nd amendment debates, there are 1.2B people waiting for the conclusion.

    As much as i want to trust cardin and blinken and feinstein and schumer and swawell and aoc and gates and algore and the ex-intel community in congress and media … I’m going to continue to tell them to F right off for now.

    1. Don’t hold your breath .. . the FBI is still investigating The Laptop.

      *circa 2019

      1. Update: Chuck Todd and GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan agree on congressional hearings

        Todd: “I think you’re definitely right on those public hearings,” said the NBC anchor. “At a minimum, we need to know what we know and the world needs to know what we know.”

        *I couldn’t agree more.

        1. You failed to give AOC’s concerns? I’m sure she can trace this all back to Trump.

          1. No doubt. AOC could trace Adam’s exile from Paradise back to Trump. .. as well as his fall from grace.

            *but, again, don’t hold your breath .. . AOC is busy criticizing China for sending ‘lethal aid’ to Ukraine.

  8. “The Lancet op-ed stated, ‘We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.’”

    Science as a handmaiden for propaganda. Those cultural leaders learned nothing from Nazi Germany and communist Russia.

  9. Is not this the time when we scream “tear up the cobblestones and the streets”, “to the barricades” and then run riot through Paris. Oh, sorry, I got carried away. I forgot this is not Paris in the 1800’s and we’re not trying to to bring down a new empire or emperor or king. This is worse. This is due to a rot that is pervasive through our society and many of our institutions.The worse it gets, the more radical become the solutions. And that I am sorry to see. The question is “where to start?”. Got to start at the top because there are too many parts of the executive branch that never leave when a presidency changes. Trump’s failure in 2017 was not slashing deep enough. The cuts have to go deep until they bleed, a lot. There are many executive departments out there that need to be smoking holes in the ground, evacuated first, of course. I approve of DeSantis idea of moving multiple departments out of D.C. Agriculture needs to be in a wheat field in Kansas. DOT needs to be in Memphis or Dallas-Fort Worth for their Central location. Dept of Energy just about anywhere in Texas (Midland-Odessa), FBI in Fargo N.D., DOJ in Chicago, Treasury- Fort Knox, Ky, Health and Human Services in Rochester, Minnesota. Defense needs to be buried in a Mountain out west somewhere (Area 51 maybe).
    Interior should be outside Yellowstone Park. Commerce should be in New Orleans. These would be helpful suggestions and also imagine how low co2 would fall in the present DC area if all those people were moved out. Obviously house prices would drop in the area and the present DC area could be given back to Maryland.
    Radical solutions and multiple problems resolved.
    Then we start on “Journalism” and lastly “the Media”

    1. First there must be a SCOTUS ruling that all government unions are unconstitutional. Then we begin the clean-up. Secondly we need a SCOTUS finding that affirmative action legislation is unconstitutional and all actions spreading from that be undone. Thirdly all hate speech legislation need be declared unconstitutional bu SCOTUS so that the accompanying riots following these moves are quickly put to bed.

  10. Dear Prof Turley,

    Remember, “If you control the mail, you control information” – Newman, Seinfeld, episode 9

    Double ditto for the New York Times. .. and my msn ‘news feed’.

    As shocking as these new revelations are, and they are fu*king shocking, any news about ‘official’ U.S. gov./NGO/NIH participation in any GoF (gain of function) COVID research @ Wuhan Lab? Or was this a strictly Chinese endeavor?

    *as fu*king SHOCKING as this all is, we are all still only 90 seconds away from Doomsday and a cockeyed nuclear cock-hair away from the End Times .. .

    https://news.yahoo.com/abc-news-biden-dismisses-china-020239374.html

    1. p.s. lies, damned lies and Fact Checkers

      “In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, dared to repeat the theory on Fox News, saying, “I can present solid scientific evidence . . . [that] it is a man-made virus created in the lab.” The left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her and gave her a “pants on fire rating.”

      President Joe Biden accused Trump of fanning racism in his criticism of the Chinese government over the pandemic and his Administration reportedly shutdown the State Department investigation into the possible lab origins of the virus.”

  11. Why has “debate” suddenly become verboten?
    Oh! That is right. To do so might mean having a open discussion. Questioning possibilities. Exploring ideas. Presenting facts.
    Better to shut it down with, “ITS RACISTS!!”

    1. Unfortunately, UpstateFarmer, it doesn’t matter if you (or I) don’t believe it’s ‘racist’ .. . They Do.

      Over a year ago, when I remarked to a bunch of blue-blood medical professionals that if they hadn’t found the ‘host’ critter-pangolin by now, only lends credence to the lab-leak theory .. . they said I was ‘threatening’ the pangolin, an endangered species.

      *afaict, in every prior SARS/CoV outbreak the ‘host’ animal was found within a few weeks or months.

  12. First of all China, and all of their money and paid sycophants, demanded that anyone calling this a lab leak had to be silenced, embarrassed and put into the far right or racist box. Of course the leftists, who will do anything that will weaken our country, jumped on board and did the CCP’s bidding. For decades the left supported the Soviet Union and used lies and DISINFORMATION to discredit anyone that was concerned about Soviet power, intentions or reach. The NY Times led the way, Hollywood followed and the campuses came next. Today we have to throw in Big Tech and at that point the left can “spike” ( the old Soviet term) any story they want.

    We can also add Fauci and his crew to the “blacklisting” effort. The mad scientist knew that him and his agencies funded Wuhan and therefore his reputation and maybe his entire life could be ruined if his cash helped kill a million Americans. Not a great look for a career bureaucrat to go out and he needed to stop the “theory” from metastasizing. So the left made Fauci a hero, made him science itself, and it dovetailed nicely into the “let’s help the CCP” movement in this country.

    Finally add in Joe Biden and the fact that he is in the CCP’s pocket and you have the hat trick of censorship of a true story. The left couldn’t let Biden, the Democrat, be ruined by his attachment to China, Biden couldn’t let China be tarred with Covid due to the pressure they were applying to him and the media couldn’t let Trump argue against China and/or Biden.

  13. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this was a lab leak. Numerous scientists have already testified that the U.S. was collaborating with the CCP to research gain of function of viruses. They even published some of the sequencing.

    Is it any wonder that there is a big push to stifle free speech?

    This level of hubris and negligence is the genesis of this historic crime against humanity. I am not holding my breath that anyone will be held to account anytime soon.,Time will tell. It may be years before the truth is revealed, but it will ultimately be revealed.

    In the meantime we are watching psychological warfare in full force.

  16. NBC news app headline was that there is “low confidence” it is lab leak, hiding until muchvlater in the article the finding that it was deemed likely(albeit not fairly definite). An example of media disinformation.

  17. This is but one of many “our bad” moments to come. The question is, will people see it, hear or read about it?

  18. The governmental reaction to Covid must be the biggest public emergency-response failure of all time. And the incompetence and dishonesty has lasted three years: lockdowns that put thousands of small businesses into bankruptcy and led to massive inflation due to the need for stimulus money; vaccine mandates that have killed thousands together with the false insistence that natural immunity is not as good; the closure of schools leading to generational declines in education levels; the absurd masking of children; and the suppression of the real source of the virus under the ridiculous claim that it started in a wet market.

    It is difficult to imagine how the government and public health authorities could have been any more incompetent and malicious than in their response to Covid-19.

    1. oldmanfromkansas,
      Like to see a monetary comparison of all those things you list of lockdown vs remained open.
      Probably could add a few other categories like physical and mental health, the increase in deaths as reported by the insurance companies.

  19. The challenge for this post.
    Do not respond with your position concerning the origin of the Whu Hu Flu.
    Keep your comments focused on the governments response to the debate about the origin.

    1. mespo—–I’ll call Sam Adams and we’ll meet you down by the docks. Wear moccasins and war paint, and warm up your throwin’ arm.

      P.S. Isn’t it ironic that 250 years ago we were protesting the incredible unfairness of The Tea Act ( as you know, the East India Company’s tea came from CHINA!) And today? China can do whatever the hell they want without fear of penaltties from us.

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