Civics: “fact checking” legacy media climate

ISABEL VAN BRUGEN AND JAN JEKIELEK

PolitiFact, for example, on May 24 quietly retracted a September 2020 fact check that labeled a Hong Kong virologist’s claim that COVID-19 originated in a lab as inaccurate and a “debunked conspiracy theory.”

“The claim is inaccurate and ridiculous,” the now-archived fact check previously said. “We rate it Pants on Fire!”

In an updated editor’s note, PolitiFact explained why it removed the label.

“When this fact-check was first published in September 2020, PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed,” the note said. “For that reason, we are removing this fact-check from our database pending a more thorough review. Currently, we consider the claim to be unsupported by evidence and in dispute.”

Separately, the Washington Post quietly walked back its claims regarding the COVID-19 lab leak theory.

The paper in February 2020 published an article claiming the idea was a “conspiracy theory” that had been “debunked.” The article attacked Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who called for an investigation into the origins of the CCP virus.

Some reporters have said that they disregarded the lab leak theory because Republicans were largely the ones promoting the idea.

Weinstein described the phenomenon as “a headlong rush, by all of those who had gotten the story wrong to explain themselves—and their explanations made less than no sense.”

And, censorship at Linkedin: Yes, I have been locked out of Linked In and my account has been shut down. #censorship in the time of COVID. I have had to submit copies of my driver’s license and Linked In will now make a determination about reactivating my account.