'Breaking the News': How pro-China corporate media and left-wing activists gutted reporting on the Wuhan coronavirus
By newseditors // 2021-06-10
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As has become clear in recent weeks, the establishment media and Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe were never particularly interested in doing accurate reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Article by Alexander Marlow republished from Breitbart.com)

As I document in my new bestselling book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption, the press sought to turn the virus into "God’s gift to the left" (that’s Jane Fonda’s terminology, not mine), pushing a narrative that we are all victims of the Trump Virus and the former president’s supposed incompetence. The only solution, we were told, was a massive expansion of government and more corporate control over our lives.

It became clear early on in the pandemic that the pro-Democrat media establishment was not going to do the Bad Orange President any political favors, even if that meant that they would have to ignore obvious leads on the biggest news story in decades. After all, the incentives for getting to the bottom of the origins of the virus were seemingly low for ideologically leftist reporters. If the crisis was seen as Trump’s fault, it would make it all the more likely he would lose his reelection bid in November 2020. And if it the plan was to portray the outbreak as the "Trump Virus," it certainly couldn’t be the "Wuhan Flu" or "China Virus" too. Perhaps more interesting, though, is that many of the newsrooms and tech platforms that control the vast majority of the flow of information on the pandemic have deep financial ties to China – or would like to have them one day. Take NBC News for example. NBC News is part of the multinational conglomerate NBCComcastUniversal. Why would NBC News do a big exposé on, say, Chinese concentration camps when there is a Universal Studios in Beijing? Or why would NBC make it clear to their readers and viewers that China is the worst human rights abuser on Earth when, say, the latest movie from the Fast and Furious franchise is set to open and Universal is handling the international distribution? (Now all of a sudden actor John Cena’s groveling to the communist nation makes a lot more cents, I mean sense, doesn’t it?) My reporting also confirms that news outlet with even a small amount of access to China are under near-constant fear of being thrown out of country, or even "disappeared." How about ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company. Disney’s business interests in China are vast, including billions of dollars in revenue from movies and theme parks. Recall that the end credits of the recent live-action remake of Mulan featured a thank you to a Chinese government security bureau linked to Uyghur concentration camps. Now you know why. Laurene Powell Jobs, the Soros-esque tech heiress and multi-multi-billionaire that funds much of America’s media from The Atlantic to Axios to Mother Jones to Pro Publica and much more, derives much of her incalculable wealth from Apple and Disney, two massive businesses that have deep financial ties to China. In other words, a large portion of her net worth, and thus the capital used for those news outlets, is connected to Chinese money and labor. She makes piles of sweet, sweet commie cash, then she funds Democrats and left-wing media outlets. Do you believe that any of these outlets (or politicians) were really going to dig deep to uncover the origins of the coronavirus, especially in an election year? Of course not. Because if they uncovered the truth, it just might be harmful for the businesses prospects of their bosses/benefactors. And of course, it might have helped Trump win. I list a number of other news outlets in Breaking the News with disturbingly deep ties to China, with Bloomberg being perhaps the most shockingly intertwined. Mini Mike’s mega financial news business breathlessly reported China’s victory over COVID-19, uncritically accepting CCP propaganda on the issue, even touting China’s economy during this time, suggesting the communist nation is heading toward "world dominance." Absurdly, China topped Bloomberg’s list of "COVID Zero havens." As I reported in my dramatic opening bombshell from Breaking the News, Bloomberg News’ parent company is subject to regulation by the Chinese government. Bloomberg News’s own editors repeatedly met with Chinese propagandists to discuss how to "present China to the world," among other issues. The CCP entity that control’s Bloomberg’s access, the SCIO, is the exact same office that is responsible for the regime’s talking points. In February, the China-tied World Health Organization (WHO) named Mike Bloomberg as a "global ambassador." The collusion isn’t even subtle at this point. The New York Times’ reporting has been typically low-integrity on the China virus. They reported that the communist nation had a miracle recovery from COVID, paying little mind to the fact that few countries, if any, are less credible on virus data than China. The Gray Lady even disgustingly praised the Communist Party(!) for beating the virus. An actual passage from a February 2021 Times article:
In the year since the coronavirus began its march around the world, China has done what many other countries would not or could not do. With equal measures of coercion and persuasion, it has mobilized its vast Communist Party apparatus to reach deep into the private sector and the broader population, in what the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, has called a "people’s war" against the pandemic — and won.
Did the CCP really suppress the virus, thus achieving "victory" over COVID-19? More likely, they suppressed the facts, which benefits the Chinese regime. But we don’t really know for sure, which is exactly what the CPP wants. After all, China has perhaps the least free press on Earth. While the New York Times tried to convince their readers that China was winning the war with the virus, they desperately sought to prove Florida was losing it. They touted the mostly discredited claims of "Florida Woman" Rebekah Jones, who accused DeSantis of fudging Florida’s low virus numbers. They mocked Florida’s relatively-lax mask policies. They stoked fear that re-opening the Sunshine State would lead to a massive resurgence in the virus. They even appeared to try to keep families from enjoying Disney World. Every one of the aforementioned examples was framed in a way that suggested star Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was mishandling the crisis, and every one turned out to be anti-science fake news. The Times’ skewed coverage works to the benefit of our geopolitical rivals in China, but there is method to this madness, as I document in Breaking the News. After all, the New York Times Company board is comprised of many members of world’s biggest companies like Facebook, Verizon, and AIG, among others, that have present or future business interests in the Communist nation. And, of course, the worse China looks, the better Trump looks. Last week, a New York Times reporter said the "lab leak theory" had "racist origins," even as many of her colleagues in establishment journalism have come around to the idea. Now, we’re told that the lab leak theory "suddenly became credible." This is a sleight of hand. The theory was always credible; it’s the coverage itself that has lacked trustworthiness. When it comes to the pandemic’s origin, who’s to say that even the most dogged journalist could have unearthed bombshells? It appears as though China only allowed the WHO to conduct anything remotely resembling an "investigation." Foreign Policy called the WHO a "willing international partner" of Beijing and a "coronavirus accomplice" to the Communist regime. Virtually the entire news media has been compromised when it comes to China. Social media isn’t to be trusted either. While many of those Big Tech publishers are banned or heavily censored by Beijing, they would one day like to have unfettered access to the Chinese people (and all that sweet, sweet commie cash), so assume they will not do anything to compromise future business prospects. Still, there was yet another major factor that further cut revenue to those who dared tell the true story of the Wuhan Flu: the demonetizing of pandemic content due to online activism from far-left activists. Last March, Buzzfeed reported: "Coronavirus Ad Blocking Is Starving Some News Sites Of Revenue." Major online advertisers had begun depriving sites discussing any controversial topics of ad revenue. This new blacklisting tactic was pioneered by Sleeping Giants, a radical left-wing activist group which originally targeted Breitbart’s advertisers with a brand safety hoax (I explain this in deep detail in the book). However, the boycotts backfired on the Sleeping Giants. It soon became clear they had reset the advertising industry to blacklist a lot of content their pals on the left were monetizing, including posts on the coronavirus. Meanwhile, Breitbart News was still striving. In a rare moment of self-awareness, Sleeping Giants co-founder Nandini Jammi owned up to the fact that her movement was apparently bankrupting newsrooms filled with typical liberal journalists:
Hey folks, Nandini here. As keyword blacklisting "coronavirus" continues to decimate the news industry, I have had the sinking feeling that Sleeping Giants (a campaign which I co-run) has something to do with it.
Jammi acknowledged she made a mistake, but it’s okay because they only wanted to target bigotry – or more accurately, her definition of "bigotry," which is presumably normative conservative thought. But much of what we now know about COVID was labeled as racist early on. A couple examples of many from the first few months of the pandemic:
  • January 31, CNN: "As the coronavirus spreads, fear is fueling racism and xenophobia"
    • Bonus: The article refers to the virus as "Wuhan Coronavirus."
  • February 27, Slate: "That’s because the rumors of a lab escape or a bioweapon stem from historical amnesia, a caricatured villain, and good old-fashioned racism."
  • March 3, NPR: "When Xenophobia Spreads Like A Virus"
There are many more examples in Breaking the News. Another article (title: Italy Shows Just How Crazy Coronavirus Panic Can Get) published by The Daily Beast chastised Italy for being too "xenophobic" about COVID:
Italians refused to go to Chinese restaurants and shops when the virus first emerged. Now they are being shunned worldwide. The stigma is spreading faster than the virus itself.
Those same supposedly monstrous Italians went on to experience the highest death toll from COVID-19 in all of Europe. That’s pretty cruel, Daily Beast! Of course, the real victims of the media’s overwhelming failure to cover the coronavirus pandemic accurately aren’t poor, innocent journalists: It’s the American citizens who were fed fake news and pro-Beijing talking points; and many of those who dared to question them were memory-holed from the social web entirely. Perhaps they lost their livelihoods. Further dis-incentivizing reporting on the coronavirus origins was that social media platforms, especially Facebook, censored or banned information related to the Wuhan lab, even if it was accurate. And now we learned this week that none other than St. Dr. Fauci himself knew the "lab leak" theory was a possibility, even as he watched a mass censorship campaign unfold, keeping the public misinformed. And perhaps, this epic fake news saga is what ensured Joe Biden’s victory. Read more at: Breitbart.com and Biased.news.
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