'The implications of this episode are much broader than understanding the source of the pandemic. It is a question about whether institutions like the media and government can withstand the pressure of ideological conformity.' jonathanchait writes
Photo: Ng Han Guan/AP/Shutterstock As we sift through the lab-leak debacle, the good news is that the healthy antibodies in the system are still strong enough to overcome the groupthink that produced the original error. News media are investigating a hypothesis they once dismissed, and the government has announced an investigation to find the truth.
That is an extraordinarily damning admission. Health experts who understood all along that it was entirely possible that the virus emerged from a lab simply refused to examine the hypothesis because it had become associated with the likes of Donald Trump. Journalists make mistakes, especially operating in a chaotic atmosphere dominated by the ceaseless jabberings of a pathological liar with a giant megaphone. What’s concerning is that, even faced with undeniable proof of the error, many people still refuse to concede it.
“Personally I think that when a public figure is a known racist liar it’s fine to treat their evidence-free statements as racist lies,” insisted podcaster Michael Hobbes. “If David Duke gives a speech about rising urban crime rates it’s not the media’s job to report the most plausible version of his argument.
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