NYT Writer Who Misled People On COVID Complains About Being Misled By Experts
The New York Times is very upset that it was "misled" about COVID by experts, scientists, and politicians. Welcome to how the rest of us feel about the New York Times misleading us during COVID.
This revelation came courtesy of Times' writer Zeynep Tufecki, the same Zeynep Tufecki who pressured outside scientists to undercut legitimate research conclusions because it contradicted what she personally believed about masks.
READ: New York Times Pressured Scientists To Lie About Masks
Tufecki though, is back, this time acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, those experts weren't always telling the whole truth. In an article entitled "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," Tufecki excoriated those who created false narratives that shaped our understanding of the pandemic.
Sounds exactly like what she and the rest of the Times did, doesn't it?
Dr. Anthony Fauci. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
New York Times Gets Some Things Right, While Missing Other Key COVID Points
Tufecki's complaint centers on how discussions about the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were labeled and dismissed, despite the very real probability that they were right.
"Yet in 2020, when people started speculating that a laboratory accident might have been the spark that started the Covid-19 pandemic, they were treated like kooks and cranks," she writes. "Many public health officials and prominent scientists dismissed the idea as a conspiracy theory, insisting that the virus had emerged from animals in a seafood market in Wuhan, China."
This is all true; that's exactly what happened. And Tufecki admits that those same "public health officials and prominent scientists" not only labeled it a conspiracy theory, they were conspiring themselves to purposefully mislead the public.
"We have since learned, however, that to promote the appearance of consensus, some officials and scientists hid or understated crucial facts, misled at least one reporter, orchestrated campaigns of supposedly independent voices and even compared notes about how to hide their communications in order to keep the public from hearing the whole story," she says.
Again, this is all true. That's exactly what happened. Anthony Fauci sent cryptic emails and joined conference calls to discuss how to handle public opinion. While other public health experts privately admitted that they believed a lab leak was likely, if not probable. All while saying otherwise to the media.
One expert, evolutionary biologist Kristian Anderson, spelled it out perfectly: "The lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario."
She goes on to describe how the Wuhan lab continues to do risky, potentially similar research to what they seemingly did with the coronavirus. And questions how that could be the case, given what we know.
"Why haven’t we learned our lesson? Maybe because it’s hard to admit that this research is risky now and to take the requisite steps to keep us safe without also admitting it was always risky," she writes. "And that perhaps we were misled on purpose."
Well, well, well. How the tables turn.
Tufecki continues, saying that there's an obvious reason why legitimate debate might have been silenced. Then takes an unwarranted shot at those who pointed out that the lab leak was a possibility.
"It’s not hard to imagine how the attempt to squelch legitimate debate might have started," she writes. "Some of the loudest proponents of the lab leak theory weren’t just earnestly making inquiries; they were acting in terrible faith, using the debate over pandemic origins to attack legitimate, beneficial science, to inflame public opinion, to get attention. For scientists and public health officials, circling the wagons and vilifying anyone who dared to dissent might have seemed like a reasonable defense strategy."
So the scientific community, the "experts," and the media was justified in misleading the public because the "wrong" people noticed that the lab leak was the likely explanation. That criticizing "legitimate" science was unacceptable, in "terrible faith."
That framing is absurd, offensive, and inaccurate. The "scientists" who happily signed off on papers, journal articles, and public statements labeling the lab leak as a racist conspiracy theory were seen as conducting "legitimate, beneficial science." They also lied, misrepresented, and misdirected to protect their peers, their profession, their reputation, relationship with China, and most importantly, millions in funding. If the "experts" wished to be treated with reverence and unquestioning worship that they believe they deserve, they could have told the truth. They didn't. Noticing that those experts lied means outside observers were acting in "terrible faith." It's ridiculous and patently false.
Tufecki says that there's an incentive for those officials to avoid questioning their own mistakes.
"That’s also why it might be tempting for those officials or the organizations they represent to avoid looking too closely at mistakes they made, at the ways that, while trying to do such a hard job, they might have withheld relevant information and even misled the public."
This would all be well and good, if Tufecki and the New York Times had not done exactly the same thing on any number of COVID policies.
Tufecki herself pushed for the Cochrane Library to disavow its review showing that masks do not stop respiratory viruses. Why would she question "legitimate, beneficial science" like that? Because acknowledging that the best available evidence said masks were ineffective would mean she had to "avoid looking too closely at mistakes" she made.
The Times excoriated politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for opening his state and schools, as well as banning mask mandates and vaccine passports. They happily supported Anthony Fauci, even after it became clear that he'd made a hefty contribution to misleading the public about the lab leak and any number of COVID-related issues.
They celebrated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as the voice of reason, in opposition to dastardly anti-science President Trump, all while Cuomo was sending infected nursing home patients back into their residences.
Instead of pushing public health officials to justify their assertions with evidence, like say, Rochelle Walensky, the former head of the CDC, misleading the public by saying that those with COVID vaccines "did not carry the virus," and "don't get sick," they happily repeated it. Then used appeals to authority to downplay or criticize outsiders who said Walensky was wrong.
That just scratches the surface of issues with the Times' coverage of COVID. And Tufecki's in particular. They covered any "study" or review that promoted masks, no matter how absurd or inaccurate, then ignored or downplayed those that said otherwise.
Tufecki is right about how science, experts and public health officials misled the media, the public, and the world at large about the origins of the virus. But she refuses to apply that logic to her own mistakes and to her paper's own work, spreading falsehoods about COVID policies and mandates.
Because boy oh boy, were there a whole lot of them.