4 ms·

The reason it's coming out now is because Trump is gone. During the election, most of the media decided to ignore anything they were afraid would help Trump or

The reason it's coming out now is because Trump is gone. During the election, most of the media decided to ignore anything they were afraid would help Trump or hurt Biden. Whether an activist media is good or bad is left as an exercise for the reader.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
We have an actively status-quo favoring media, not an activist one. The former president was a pathological liar (thousands of documented clear lies during his office), and there were (and are) extremely good reasons to ignore more or less anything he said.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  There are reasons to ignore what Trump says - not reasons to believe the opposite of what he says. In other words, if Trump says "Covid was made in a Chinese lab" that shouldn't convince anyone either way. I'm afraid it may have convinced our media though that "Covid was definitely not made in a Chinese lab" and that is basically the same mistake as believing everything Trump says.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  To paraphrase one of my favorite comedies, Super Troopers: “But Trump’s lies are cheeky and fun! Yeah, and the establishment’s lies are cruel and tragic.” Of course this is an overstatement; Trump’s lies were not pretty but the point is that obvious lies are significantly less damaging than well-hidden lies. It’s the skillful liars that one needs to be wary of.
  - mitigating 5y ago
    Lying about election fraud has caused a great deal of damage.
  - knowaveragejoe 5y ago
    This is massively downplaying the amount of damage trump & his cohort's lies have done and continue to do.
adrr 5y ago
Trump officials are the ones who said it wasn’t a lab leak from the start. Did you read the article?
- fragileone 5y ago
  Donald Trump =/= his employees
  - adrr 5y ago
    Nominated positions means he has direct control of them. He can fire and replace them at anytime.
    - badmadrad 5y ago
      If he did the media would say he was a madman firing people for not believing a conspiracy theory. He can't win with you folks.
      - adrr 5y ago
        Pretty sure he fire more of his cabinet than any other president. He also picked them. Do you hold him responsible for anything?
tehwebguy 5y ago
Comments like this bring up so many questions in my mind -- do you prefer conservative news media? If so, are you struggling to find news media to consume? Are you aware of the top cable news network, the newer smaller ones, the media holding companies that dominate local news affiliates and dictate conservative talking points through their hosts, the massively popular hard-right conservative influencers, Facebook, etc?
- th0ma5 5y ago
  A thousand times this. I'm not sure the underdog, censored thing really works anymore when you can find these ideas and opinions everywhere.
- knowaveragejoe 5y ago
  All one has to do is look at the top reaching posts on facebook each week - it's mostly right-wing pundits like Ben Shapiro or Dan Bongino. Occasionally Bernie Sanders or AOC breaks into the list, but usually overwhelmingly right-wing pundits.
SkyMarshal 5y ago
There’s an alternate interpretation. It’s not that the media wanted to avoid helping Trump or hurting Biden, even going so far as to withhold reporting the truth of the pandemic’s origin. But rather that the media had a higher threshold of evidence for publishing accusations of malfeasance against another nationstate than Trump did, and hadn’t met that threshold till recently. Trump was notoriously flippant, with low or no standard for truth, or even merely diplomatic tact. His MO is not truth-finding but rather saying anything distressing to his political adversaries. He is an archetypal Internet troll with the soapbox of the US presidency. He spent four years doing that, essentially crying wolf over and over. By the time the pandemic hit, the media was universally resistant to serving as a megaphone to amplify his trolling. Thus they held back on this story until they could piece together and verify enough of it to meet their higher threshold of evidence. That simply took until now to do.
- mayama 5y ago
  Media and threshold of evidence? You need suspension of belief if you even want to consider it for a moment. The case of 5g causing corona being covered recently, without instant ban like lableak theory, is a case in point.
  - knowaveragejoe 5y ago
    Show examples and be specific, otherwise you're conjuring up a comparison between the two out of thin air.
TchoBeer 5y ago
Trump has been gone for half a year.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

We have an actively status-quo favoring media, not an activist one. The former president was a pathological liar (thousands of documented clear lies during his office), and there were (and are) extremely good reasons to ignore more or less anything he said.

ALittleLight 5y ago
There are reasons to ignore what Trump says - not reasons to believe the opposite of what he says. In other words, if Trump says "Covid was made in a Chinese lab" that shouldn't convince anyone either way. I'm afraid it may have convinced our media though that "Covid was definitely not made in a Chinese lab" and that is basically the same mistake as believing everything Trump says.
jkhdigital 5y ago
To paraphrase one of my favorite comedies, Super Troopers: “But Trump’s lies are cheeky and fun! Yeah, and the establishment’s lies are cruel and tragic.” Of course this is an overstatement; Trump’s lies were not pretty but the point is that obvious lies are significantly less damaging than well-hidden lies. It’s the skillful liars that one needs to be wary of.
- mitigating 5y ago
  Lying about election fraud has caused a great deal of damage.
- knowaveragejoe 5y ago
  This is massively downplaying the amount of damage trump & his cohort's lies have done and continue to do.

adrr 5y ago

Trump officials are the ones who said it wasn’t a lab leak from the start. Did you read the article?

fragileone 5y ago
Donald Trump =/= his employees
- adrr 5y ago
  Nominated positions means he has direct control of them. He can fire and replace them at anytime.
  - badmadrad 5y ago
    If he did the media would say he was a madman firing people for not believing a conspiracy theory. He can't win with you folks.
    - adrr 5y ago
      Pretty sure he fire more of his cabinet than any other president. He also picked them. Do you hold him responsible for anything?

tehwebguy 5y ago

Comments like this bring up so many questions in my mind -- do you prefer conservative news media? If so, are you struggling to find news media to consume? Are you aware of the top cable news network, the newer smaller ones, the media holding companies that dominate local news affiliates and dictate conservative talking points through their hosts, the massively popular hard-right conservative influencers, Facebook, etc?

th0ma5 5y ago
A thousand times this. I'm not sure the underdog, censored thing really works anymore when you can find these ideas and opinions everywhere.
knowaveragejoe 5y ago
All one has to do is look at the top reaching posts on facebook each week - it's mostly right-wing pundits like Ben Shapiro or Dan Bongino. Occasionally Bernie Sanders or AOC breaks into the list, but usually overwhelmingly right-wing pundits.

SkyMarshal 5y ago

There’s an alternate interpretation. It’s not that the media wanted to avoid helping Trump or hurting Biden, even going so far as to withhold reporting the truth of the pandemic’s origin. But rather that the media had a higher threshold of evidence for publishing accusations of malfeasance against another nationstate than Trump did, and hadn’t met that threshold till recently. Trump was notoriously flippant, with low or no standard for truth, or even merely diplomatic tact. His MO is not truth-finding but rather saying anything distressing to his political adversaries. He is an archetypal Internet troll with the soapbox of the US presidency. He spent four years doing that, essentially crying wolf over and over. By the time the pandemic hit, the media was universally resistant to serving as a megaphone to amplify his trolling. Thus they held back on this story until they could piece together and verify enough of it to meet their higher threshold of evidence. That simply took until now to do.

mayama 5y ago
Media and threshold of evidence? You need suspension of belief if you even want to consider it for a moment. The case of 5g causing corona being covered recently, without instant ban like lableak theory, is a case in point.
- knowaveragejoe 5y ago
  Show examples and be specific, otherwise you're conjuring up a comparison between the two out of thin air.

TchoBeer 5y ago

Trump has been gone for half a year.