CNN ex-boss Jeff Zucker told staff to dismiss ‘lab leak’ theory because it was a ‘Trump talking point’
US media has come under fire for suppressing the possibility that Covid-19 escaped from a lab in Wuhan - a theory pushed by Donald Trump.
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Mainstream US media and news organisations including CNN, The New York Times, MSNBC, and others have come under fire in recent days following a government report which concluded that an accidental leak from a Chinese laboratory is the most likely explanation for the Covid-19 outbreak and its ensuing pandemic.
In the initial weeks and months of the pandemic, prominent media personalities, public health officials, and elected officials dismissed the “lab leak” theory as “debunked” — with some suggesting it was racist to even discuss the topic.
According to the New York Post, CNN’s then-president Jeff Zucker told his staffers not to investigate the “lab leak theory” because he thought it was a “Trump talking point,” according to a report.
A CNN insider told Fox News Digital on Monday, local time, that Mr Zucker gave the order in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is kind of crazy that we didn’t chase [the story] harder,” the insider told Fox News Digital.
Last week, Tom Elliott, a freelance journalist, posted a Twitter thread showing clips of MSNBC and CNN personalities dismissing the possibility of the lab leak as a “conspiracy theory.”
But in a recent US government agency report, the “lab leak” theory was cited as increasingly likely.
It comes as the United States is demanding China come clean about the origins of the Covid pandemic after new intelligence blamed a lab leak for the virus.
US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said the Chinese government needed to “be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the Covid-19 crisis”.
State Department spokesman Ned Price agreed, accusing China of “blocking from the beginning international investigators and members of the global health community from accessing information that they need to understand the origins of Covid-19”.
It comes after Beijing on Monday denied the claim that the Covid-19 pandemic arose from a leak at one of its laboratories, following media reports that the US Department of Energy has determined that was the most likely cause of the outbreak.
A foreign ministry spokesperson told people to “stop stirring up claims about laboratory leaks, stop smearing China, and stop politicising the origin-tracing issue.”
“A laboratory leak wasn’t found to be possible by authoritative scientific conclusions drawn by joint experts from China and the (World Health Organisation),” Mao Ning said at a press conference on Monday night.
The WHO said it had not received any information about the Energy Department’s findings and was continuing to examine “all available scientific evidence,” spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.
“We call on China and the scientific community to undertake necessary studies” for determining the virus’ origin, he added. “Until we have more evidence, all hypothesis are still on the table.”
The White House maintained on Sunday that American intelligence remained divided on the issue.
Four US intelligence agencies believe the Covid-19 pandemic occurred through natural transmission, while two others remain undecided, the Wall Street Journal reported.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan emphasised a “variety of views” on the matter remain.
“Right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question,” he told CNN on Sunday.
In mid-February, the WHO pledged to do everything possible “until we get the answer” on Covid’s origins, denying a report suggesting the agency had abandoned its investigation.
The scientific community sees it as crucial to determine the origins of the pandemic in order to better fight or even prevent the next one.
CHINA LAB LEAK RESPONSIBLE FOR COVID: REPORT
The US Energy Department told the White House it believes a lab leak is the most likely explanation.
The Energy Department’s verdict – which blames the virus that has killed almost seven million people worldwide including nearly 20,000 Australians on a lab mishap in China – concurs with the view of the FBI.
But four other agencies in the US intelligence community maintain it was likely the result of transmission from animals to humans through a wet market, while two others are undecided.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday (AEDT) that the Energy Department’s classified finding, based on new intelligence and the work of its own advanced laboratory network, was made with “low confidence”.
The FBI blamed a Chinese lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence”.
Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan refused to confirm or deny the report in an appearance on CNN, but he said the President had been urging US government agencies to continue investigating the origins of the pandemic.
“President Biden specifically requested that the national labs, which are part of the Energy Department, be brought into this assessment because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here,” Mr. Sullivan said.
“There is a variety of views in the intelligence community … Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”
“Right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that all US agencies involved in investigating the origins of the pandemic agreed that Covid was not the result of a Chinese biological weapons program.
The Energy Department’s update has been shared with members of Congress, as Republican members pursue their own investigations into how the pandemic started.
The debate has been fuelled by a US intelligence report revealed in 2021 which found three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology had been sick enough with Covid symptoms in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.
– With AFP
Originally published as CNN ex-boss Jeff Zucker told staff to dismiss ‘lab leak’ theory because it was a ‘Trump talking point’
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