Washington Post walk-back on COVID origins epitomizes media fails of Trump, pandemic eras | Just The News

It took The Washington Post fewer than 50 words to retract its 2020 attack on Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton’s credibility for speculating that the COVID-19 virus emanated from a Chinese lab leak a theory now deemed credible by the U.S. government. The words spoke volumes more, however, about the traditional media’s record of failings during the era of former President Donald Trump and the coronavirus pandemic.

“Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus,” the Post declared in an undated correction to a Feb. 20, 2020 article that accused Cotton of spreading a “fringe theory” that had been debunked as a conspiracy.

“The term ‘debunked’ and The Post’s use of ‘conspiracy theory’ have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus,” the outlet explained.

In other words, the Post admitted it drew its conclusions in a story and headline before the facts were clear enough to do so. This pattern has repeated itself far too often since Trump walked down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 to launch a campaign that turned political convention, Washington elites and the news media upside down

via justthenews.com

Heh.