Today is COVID day for David Strom at Hot Air.

I didn’t plan it this way, it just happens that a lot of COVID news has been coming out of late. It’s almost like a dam is breaking.

The next item on the menu also relates to the lab leak theory, and how the Elite decided to bury the possibility that the virus didn’t enter the human population through natural means, but rather through a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

As Dr. Martin Makary said the other day testifying before Congress, but for the fact that the NIH had been funding the WIV everybody would have acknowledged pretty quickly that COVID likely escaped from the lab. But since everybody involved had a strong incentive to cover up the possibility, they worked hard to discredit the idea as a conspiracy theory.

.@GOPOversight uncovered emails showing that Dr. Fauci was warned early on that the virus looked man-made and may have come from the Wuhan lab. Instead of blowing the whistle, Dr. Fauci May have acted to cover it up. @MartyMakary brings the facts. pic.twitter.com/x7gSRYvIxZ

— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) February 28, 2023

Still, you would think the story would be just too juicy for the media to ignore it. Even given their natural affinity for the bureaucrats and their buddies in the government, some stories are just too big to ignore. Imagine the scoop, the books that could be written, the careers that could be made from proving that the US government likely funded the lab that leaked the virus.

You would think that a story that juicy would attract some ambitious reporter to stab his own mother in the back.

You would think, but then there is Trump. Trump was pushing the lab leak, so it had to be debunked.

A CNN insider has leaked an interesting tidbit about why the network decided not to pursue the lab leak theory: it was a Trump “talking point,” and hence must be downplayed as insane.

CNN has long referred to itself as “the most trusted name in news” and famously launched its “Facts First” campaign during the Trump era, but like many other outlets, that sentiment fell by the wayside when it came to the COVID lab-leak theory.

In recent days, the theory that COVID originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been embraced by FBI Director Christopher Wray and a bombshell report indicated that the U.S. Energy Department believes the virus likely started in the lab, a sentiment expressed by top Trump administration officials nearly from the outset.

But in the early months of the pandemic, then-CNN president Jeff Zucker would not allow his network to chase down the lab-leak story because he believed it was a “Trump talking point,” according to a well-placed CNN insider. 

This is, of course, entirely consistent with the behavior of the press during the Trump years. Many stories were manipulated or even invented in order to harm the president. The Steele Dossier, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and any number of media hoaxes became standard fare.

For God’s sake, the media elevated Adam Schiff and porn lawyer Michael Avenetti to rock star status, and two more loathsome human beings would be difficult to find in America.

Fox lists in its story many CNN efforts to “debunk” the lab leak theory and such debunkings became standard fare in all the MSM outlets. Skeptics of the natural origin were smeared as conspiracy theorists, suppressed on social media, and canceled from polite society.

And none of it was based on actual, real-world data. It was a totally constructed story. How many times were you told that the lab leak theory was debunked? Countless times.

60 Minutes of leftwing pablum https://t.co/YH0HyqgTJv

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) March 5, 2023

Could the virus have originated in and escaped directly into the human population from nature?

Of course, it could have. But the evidence for that is no stronger and in my judgment weaker than the lab leak theory. The mere fact that no animal reservoir has been found in 3 years despite major efforts suggests that the lab leak is probable. Certainly, Dr. Makery thinks so.

Now that the U.S. Department of Energy has joined FBI in concluding that the coronavirus likely leaked from a lab, it’s worth remembering that the media, en masse, condemned the lab leak theory as a “debunked conspiracy theory,” and Facebook censored people who dared suggest it pic.twitter.com/RuT0w0SgpV

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 26, 2023

Whatever the origin, the Narrative™ about the origin was totally constructed as propaganda. There was a total indifference to either the truth or the consequences for the people harmed by the smear campaigns against them.

I have been very hard on Fox News for their coverage of the Dominion election fraud lies and won’t justify their own ideological fakery, but the revelations from the Dominion lawsuit do little but put Fox into the same category as the rest of the MSM regarding fealty to the truth. And, unlike those other news organizations, Fox didn’t actually endorse any of the fanciful conspiracy theories, merely allowed their airing.

I wish I could say I was surprised by the revelations that Zucker actively suppressed reporting for political purposes, but of course, I am not.

It’s hard to become more disgusted with our Elite than I already am.

MSNBC's @JoyAnnReid: "Debunked bunkum" that Covid could have come from a Chinese lab pic.twitter.com/TTis0PusYy

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 27, 2023