Fact-checkers in 'embarrassing position' after lab leak theory about-face: RealClearPolitics

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Media top headlines June 3

The press gushing over Dr. Fauci’s leaked emails, Chris Mathews' accuser getting hate mail and journalist Andy Ngo saying he was beaten up by Antifa last week round out today’s top media headlines

RealClearPolitics took fact-checkers to task in a new report lambasting the likes of PolitiFact and FactCheck.org for their prior "embarrassing" analysis of the COVID-19 Wuhan lab leak theory.

"How Fact-checkers Mishandled the COVID-19 Origin Debate," the headline from RealClear authors John Hirschauer and Chandler Lasch read.

"While the precise origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, remains unknown, several fact-checkers and media outlets found themselves in an embarrassing position when a theory they had previously dismissed as ‘baseless’ gained new attention from scientists," Hirschauer and Lasch argued. "That theory holds that the novel coronavirus did not originate from human contact with an infected animal, but instead was leaked – intentionally or otherwise – from the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

FAUCI: DON'T BE ‘ACCUSATORY’ WITH CHINA ON CORONAVIRUS INVESTIGATION

"For months before elite opinion on the subject began to turn, fact-checkers, media figures, and social-media platforms dismissed the lab-leak theory out of hand while relying on questionable evidence," they continue, identifying PolitiFact as one of the biggest culprits.

In September 2020, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org published fact checks of claims made by Chinese virologist Li-Meng Yan that COVID-19 was "a man-made virus created in the lab." PolitiFact's Daniel Funke dismissed it as a "debunked conspiracy theory" and slapped a "Pants on Fire!" rating on Yan's statement. FactCheck.org's Angelo Fichera agreed it was an "unsubstantiated claim." 

Following new reporting, both outlets were forced to add editors' notes in May acknowledging the lab leak theory is a possibility. PolitiFact would go on to archive its original fact check on the subject.

"Take note next time you read a "fact check" from Politifact, FactCheck dot Org, ETC..." Steve Guest, special advisor for communications for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted of the report.

RealClear did a deep dive of other instances in which PolitiFact archived fact checks, including one related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's insistence she had never sent nor received classified emails on her private server. The fact checkers rated that claim Partly True, but later archived the piece and changed it to False.

AS REPORTING ON CORONAVIRUS LAB LEAK THEORY GROWS, CRITICS ACCUSE MEDIA OF SUFFERING ‘AMNESIA’ ON TOPIC

In conclusion, RealClear wrote, "The massive media about-face on the lab-leak theory should caution fact-checkers against pronouncing victory in still-unsettled debates about matters of science. Fact-checkers should avoid the temptation to treat claims around scientific theories, which are by their nature opinions, as matters of plain and objective fact. Scientific questions are settled not through derision but through open debate and an honest examination of the evidence."

Similarly, the Washington Post issued a correction to a 15-month-old report entitled, "Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked."

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"Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus," the correction read at the top of the report. "The term 'debunked' and The Post’s use of ‘conspiracy theory’ have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus."

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Critics hit the media for suffering "amnesia" when it comes their coverage of potential origins of COVID-19. Many outlets and pundits dismissed the lab leak theory as "fringe" until a Wall Street Journal report revealed that three researchers in the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed COVID-like symptoms in November 2019. Dr. Anthony Fauci also said he's "not convinced" the virus developed naturally.