New York Times, MSNBC, CNN slammed over ‘debunked’ lab leak theory

New government intelligence which found that the coronavirus pandemic was most likely caused by an accidental laboratory leak ignited criticism of mainstream news outlets who insisted the theory was “debunked,” including the New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC.

“How many employees of media corporations who repeatedly mocked the COVID ‘lab leak’ theory as a ‘debunked’ lie that only insane conspiracy theorists believe (because Fauci told them to say that) will apologize now that much of the USG (US government) believes this?” tweeted Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald hit out at out the Times’ science and global health reporter, Apoorva Mandavilli, who in May 2021 tweeted: “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.”

Greenwald tweeted that it was “astonishing” that Mandavilli “said it’s racist to consider the ‘lab leak’ theory.”

“It wasn’t just the NYT’s COVID reporter who said the ‘lab leak’ theory is racist,” Greenwald tweeted.

“Much of the liberal-left said it, too. All that matters is the truth, but the far more racist theory was *theirs*: that COVID occurred due to primitive, unsanitary Chinese bat-eating wet markets.”

The Post has sought comment from the Times.

Critics also took aim at left-leaning cable news outlets CNN and MSNBC.

Tom Elliott, an independent journalist, posted a lengthy thread on his Twitter feed showing clips of MSNBC and CNN personalities dismissing the possibility of the lab leak as a “conspiracy theory.”

Elliott directed his followers’ attention to a video showing Joy Reid saying that the lab leak theory was “debunked bunkum.” Another clip features Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough referring to the possibility of a lab leak as a “conspiracy theory.”

Two other clips show CNN’s Fareed Zakaria and Drew Griffin referring to the lab leak as either a “conspiracy theory” or “widely debunked.”

Greenwald accused Reid of “mindlessly repeat[ing] what the CIA and FBI tells us.”

“A huge number of NBC and CNN employees repeatedly said the ‘lab leak’ theory was ‘debunked’,” Greenwald tweeted.

“That was a total lie. It was never debunked.”

Greenwald continued: “That lie was concocted by [infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony] Fauci and Peter Daszak, who had major, undisclosed personal conflicts in protecting the Wuhan Lab.”

Daszak is the controversial New York City-based virologist who conducted research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology whose nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance, received grants from Fauci’s National Institutes of Health to conduct research into coronaviruses in bats.

Chinese scientists at the Wuhan lab have been accused of carrying out “gain-of-function” research, in which such viruses are manipulated to make them more transmissible, more lethal and more dangerous.

The Post has sought comment from CNN and MSNBC.