Media Week in Review: March 3, 2023

The media flips on lab leak; Fox News takes a hit, the public shrugs.

Hi there. The Burning Telegraph is all about a news media in radical flux. This Friday newsletter (still searching for a clever name, so don’t be shy in offering your genius) is a distillation of events and ideas from the week behind us. On that note…

News at The Burning Telegraph

+ Fox News caught me commenting on the fashion designer from whom former nuclear-waste-chief-turned-luggage-thief (put that on your business card!) Sam Brinton stole unique Tazmanian clothing—and then wore it all over social media. “Journalist Ashley Rindsberg told the designer, ‘I think you can now safely assume ‘lost’ means stolen,’" Fox quoted me tweeting out my trademark acumen.

+ Deseret News did an “in praise of” piece on some recent shifts at the New York Times in which journalist Jacob Hess generously referenced me: ‘I concede many of Ashley Rindsberg’s points in his book “The Gray Lady Winked” on the “misreporting, distortions and fabrications” in the paper’s history.’

+ David Sacks of PayPal Mafia, Yammer and now All In Podcast fame, gave a shout to the (back-breaking, painstaking, pennies-making) reporting I’ve done on lab leak. (Thanks to David, who’s been an ally to many on this issue.)

David Sacks @DavidSacks

The prestige media eagerly spread Fauci’s disinformation, as @AshleyRindsberg showed.

David Sacks @DavidSacks

@AshleyRindsberg @theallinpod @Ayjchan @TheSeeker268 @gdemaneuf @mattwridley @thackerpd Thanks @AshleyRindsberg. Be sure to check out Ashley’s article on the media coverage of Lab Leak: https://t.co/BKKzyVhKYP

The Week’s Headlines

• We were still squarely in lab leak territory with virtually every outlet doing some reporting in the wake of the Dept. of Energy’s recent assessment that Covid-19 came from a lab. New York Times had David Wallace-Wells with a big piece (it was a bit long and a bit theoretical for my tastes), New York Magazine did a deep dive, Atlantic chimed in (a bit half-heartedly), CNN pushed back (true to form on the topic), and Peggy Noonan weighed in at WSJ.

• The lab leak fiasco (as I called it in my first big story on the topic) somewhat overshadowed what otherwise would have been a bigger story: behind-the-scenes revelations from Fox News surfaced by the Fox News-Dominion law suit. Oliver Darcy went on air to coax the public into outrage but his efforts, valiant as they were, seem to have been met with a collective shrug.

• On social media, Nikola Hannah-Jones of 1619 Project fame/infamy (depending, like so much today, on whom you ask) got into a Twitter spat with a survivor of China’s Cultural Revoluion—and lost. In the offing, she minted a new social media influencer—ladies and gentlemen, introducing Xi Van Fleet.

  Xi Van Fleet @XVanFleet

  

  nypost.comNYT journo, ‘1619 Project’ creator lectures survivor of China’s Cultural Revolution on oppressionNew York Times journalist and “1619 Project” creator Nikole Hannah-Jones attempted to lecture a survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution about oppression.

Media Winners & Losers

• Week’s Media Winner: New York Post wins the week for its genius lab leak headline: “It Had to Be Wu.”

• Week’s Media Loser: The media broadly construed loses for its three-year-long faceplant on lab leak.

Till Next Week

I’m experimenting with some video, so I’ll leave you with an explainer on what happened with the media and lab leak, and why it matters.