What’s changed is not the evidence – of which there is none so far to prove either scenario – but the politics. The lab-leak theory, born into an environment poisoned by disinformation, was undermined not so much by China’s denials, but by the fact it was being pumped by former US President Donald Trump.
Media organisations everywhere gave it the cold shoulder. My own attempts to look seriously at the lab-leak theory in May last year ran into long and fraught editorial discussions before it finally made it to publication.
Thus says the BBC’s China correspondent in a story linked from the BBC’s front page today. When Trump raised it, it was poisonous disinformation. Now Biden is raising it, the BBC is treating it with more respect.
What the Bashir story revealed about how far the BBC would go should not have surprised me – but did. By contrast, the only surprising thing about this revelation is that they admit it. (So give a little credit where a very little credit is due. Others in the MSM will pretend that “new evidence now indicates what only an absurdist like Trump would believe last year”, or take the even easier line, already much used with masks, of silently implying that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.)
Meanwhile, of course, ‘our’ BBC will continue to insist that just because they forge bank statements to pretend their fake news is true, that doesn’t mean that we can forge bank statements to pretend we’ve paid their licence fee. And while the beeb take the lab-leak theory seriously now that Biden does, I think that even if Biden were to come out with another gaffe-boast about having
“the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organisation in the history of US politics”
the BBC would not become a jot less derisive of Trump’s theory about that. No experience of the failure of their reporting seems to shake the BBC’s faith in its essential excellence.
The BBC really is a farcical institution that needs to be burned to the ground and earth on which it stood salted. I wonder if the likes of John Sudworth even grasp how damning all this is about the MSM (& the BBC in particular).
I’ll go farther than Perry: The BBC is a cancer.
But it does have people like John Sudworth who, apparently, try to do an honest job.
Whether they are a positive, or a negative by providing spurious legitimacy to the BBC, remains to be established.
What surprised me is that BBC folks lie not only to their audience, but also to the people who provide them with the news.
That, of course, provides a way to generate fake news: you give false information to select people, then interview them, and the interviewees feed back the fake news.
The BBC is the keystone of the progressive rot in the UK.
They will, to their eternal damnation, fight tooth and nail to preserve it.
Problem is, our partisanship no longer depends on true facts. We’re part of one team or the other, and so most people who you might think would have a change of mindset over all of the course-reversals won’t really care – so long as it was to get that bastard Trump or kill Brexit, all’s fair!
Finding out what really happened later just makes us feel better.
For the Left, reality doesn’t exists. If not, they would have to change their political views ..
The BBC doesn’t give a damn about its “excellence”. It prides itself on its “correctness”. Which means, in effect, putting today’s Narrative front and center. Regardless of what it said yesterday. Regardless of what it will say tomorrow. Anything that challenges said Narrative will be ignored where possible, or sneeringly derided as an unfounded, delusional, right-wing conspiracy theory, if it must be addressed at all.
Victoria Taft suggests that this week’s somewhat similar belated admission by a WaPo ‘fact-checker’ is in large part “framing of the timeline to prepare a soft landing for the Never-Trumpers in the press corps.
That is certainly an element in this, and worth noting, but there is also that intellectual-without-intellect arrogance that lets Kessler think himself and his colleagues clever for suspecting now what Trump was a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist for suspecting a year ago. Unlike bobby b (May 27, 2021 at 10:29 pm), I’m not sure realising the narrative may have to spin 180 degrees makes them feel ‘better’ as such, but their arrogance protects them from feeling uncomfortable.
Is it me or is this whole “reframing the narrative around the Wuhan lab” a lot like Winston Smith’s job in George Orwell’s “1984”.
Simply, update the original article to express doubt (rather than the original certainty) about it being just a “Right Wing Conspiracy Theory originating from the Bad Orange Man” and voila. Instant “told you so” from the liars and deceivers of the mainstream media.
Everybody repeat after me “The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”.
Remind me – How long is it before these lying propagandists are going to go bust again?
the BBC’s faith in its essential excellence
Years ago, while travelling I often heard Feedback, a Radio 4 programme that passed on listeners’ complaints and comments to BBC programme-makers. Not once did I hear said BBC staff admitting they had been wrong in any way. Never wrong, not even slightly: in their own eyes, they and their work were perfection itself.
This was in the 80s/90s: I can’t imagine how this problem could be worse now, but it does seem to be.
I follow the Climate Change Sceptic Paul Homewood on his blog ‘Not a lot of people know that’. He often sends official complaints off to the BBC and does follow up posts about how the complaint is dealt with. The process always follows the same pattern.
1) Sit on the complaint until they receive a reminder.
2) Apologise for the delay and promise a response.
3) Issue a response claiming that they were correct that fails to address any of the points actually made in the original complaint.
4) Finally issue an actual response that sort of addresses the original complaint but usually by claiming that up is down, black is white and short is long.
Further to my previous post, details of currently pending complaints from the aforementioned blog.
Consistently biased reports by Harrabin re the Cumbria coal mine. Wall to wall anti-mine comments from Greenpeace etc, and virtually no pro-mine ones at all.
Claim that there were record numbers of wildfires and hurricanes in the US last year.
Claim that “the wealthiest 5% alone – the so-called “polluter elite” – contributed 37% of global emissions growth between 1990 and 2015″
Claim that Victoria Falls had dried up because of global heating, following the worst drought in a century
Implying that US tornadoes were getting stronger because of climate change
Claim that California rainfall and drought was becoming more extreme because of climate change
It is not just the BBC – it is the “mainstream media” in general, and the education system (the schools and universities) – and it did not start with opposition to President Trump, the mainstream media and the education system have been lying and twisting the truth for many DECADES. Although it is getting worse and worse.
Yes they covered up the origins of Covid 19 – but they also covered up the TREATMENT of Covid 19. And they still doing so. About 80% of the people who die of Covid 19 could be saved by Early Treatment with a combination of well established (and cheap) medications – but this was systematically smeared in 2020.
I do not accept the idea that the systematic smearing of Early Treatment of Covid 19 was just to get at President Trump. No doubt that was part of the reason for the establishment smearing of Early Treatment – but it was not the full reason. Vast numbers people have died who could-have-been-saved – and people are still dying who could-be-saved. People deserve to know why the establishment smeared Early Treatment – and why they are still smearing Early Treatment (indeed acting as if there is none possible).
“I follow the Climate Change Sceptic Paul Homewood on his blog ‘Not a lot of people know that’. He often sends official complaints off to the BBC and does follow up posts about how the complaint is dealt with. The process always follows the same pattern.
1) Sit on the complaint until they receive a reminder.
2) Apologise for the delay and promise a response.
3) Issue a response claiming that they were correct that fails to address any of the points actually made in the original complaint.
4) Finally issue an actual response that sort of addresses the original complaint but usually by claiming that up is down, black is white and short is long.”
I got No 4 when I complained to the BBC about a Jack Munroe article on their website that was about how to cook on a budget. In it she claimed that tinned potatoes were cheaper than loose ones. Which is utter nonsense, they are far more expensive per kilo. The person responding to my complaint declared that because a 500g tin of potatoes (cost 50p) is cheaper in absolute terms than a 2.5Kg bag of loose potatoes (cost £1), they were in fact cheaper.
Brilliant, so £1 per kilo is actually cheaper than 40p per kilo, providing that you eat less ‘tatoe. Ignoring the fact that, if you eat that particular meal once a week, your £1 worth of loose spuds will last five weeks. In that five weeks the cheaper tinned spuds will end up costing £2.50. Yet they still manage to claim that they were right.
I had something to contribute to this topic, but I see PdH has said most of everything that needs to be said about the BBC.
I would add, that its employees should be banished, maybe the first colony on Mars, some canvas tents and a 2w radio transceiver in the hold. Just enough to give them the impression that they’ve got a future at their destination.
@APL
Good idea.
Let’s not forget a tin of potatoes. Like in The Martian film, they can try growing them in their own excrement. Unlike The Martian, they will discover they are not “sustainable” potatoes, like the ones you get in a bag from a greengrocer.
Ordinarily, I would say people learn at their own expense. Except the BBC learns (and forgets) at our expense.
How long is it before these lying propagandists are going to go bust again?
The BBC will never go bust as long as they have the licence fee to rely on.
That’s why anyone on the right should campaign for the BBC to go subscription based.
Its the only way they’ll unplug their ears.
Selective outrage has long been a characteristic of the ‘liberal’ left, and not just the BBC.
There was a weekly vigil demanding the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison camp at a church near where I worked. The usual rentacrowd of lefty protestors attended and held up placards and handed out posters. Many of those bore the image of the US president, George Walker Bush.
Then in 2008 President Obama was elected and the vigil stopped immediately. Guantanamo Bay prison camp is still open.
Honest people who had got “80 million votes” from 80 million VOTERS would have nothing to fear from audits – and would not have desperately tried endless cover ups and destruction of evidence since November 2020.
Honest people who trusted to “science” would not try and crush debate about their C02 causes Global Warming theory – and would not change (misrepresent) historic temperature data in the United States (see Tony Heller, realclimatescience.com, on that).
Honest people who actually cared about people dying of Covid 19, would not have done everything they could to cover up or SMEAR Early Treatment (with a combination of well established medications) that could have saved about 80% of the people who died.
We are not dealing with honest people – and it is not just the BBC, it is the mainstream media in general, and the education system (the schools and universities) that produce the general government and corporate manager class.
With regard to Joe Biden’s quote above, my take is that we know he is sliding into dementia. He must have had some knowledge of the vote fraud operation. That is why he was able to stay in his basement during the campaign, occasionally venturing out to speak to crowds of up to six, when President Trump was speaking to crowds of thousands. Joe knew he wasn’t going to lose.
The thing is, sometimes you say the very thing you have told yourself not to say. It just comes out. So I am sure Joe did not mean to say “voter fraud”, but when it’s all you have been thinking about, out it comes. We’ve all done it at one time or another, although not usually when we have just stolen a Presidential election.
JohnK (May 30, 2021 at 4:03 pm), your analysis of how that admission popped out of Biden’s mouth resembles mine.
However Biden said it not after, but 10 days before, the stolen election, on October 24th 2020 in an interview with Crooked Media a liberal group founded by former Obama staffers.
While those who were already suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story did what they could to ensure as few as possible heard of it, the ‘fact-checkers’ ( 🙂 ) had to work overtime. Snopes, USA Today, Reuters and etc., assured everyone that this had been ‘independently fact-checked’ as just an accidental gaffe and/or slightly mis-phrased explanation of Biden’s determination to prevent vote suppression – nothing to see here, move along.
Like the lab-leak theory, it would have been treated differently if Trump had said it.
John K
Indeed, that is why Shelob said before the election that Biden should not concede the election ‘under any circumstances‘, the only reasonable explanation for that is prior knowledge of the election being rigged. And a nice bit of projection going on there.
Niall & Mr Ed:
I was once involved in a legal proceeding, and for reasons I won’t bore you with, it was important not to use the term “all and sundry”. I made sure our witnesses knew not to use this term. Any other term in the English language was fine, just not this one.
Obviously, as soon as the first witness was asked a question, this was the term which popped out of his mouth. I had planted it in his head, and out it came. So I am sure it is the same with Sleepy Joe. He knew the Democrats were running the biggest voter fraud operation in history. So when he thinks “voter” he says “voter fraud”. No way to stop it, especially with his dementia.
What is truly pathetic is the way the slave media conspired to conceal this “gaffe” because he’s their boy. Donald Trump made one mildly silly comment about disinfectant and we never heard the end of it. The “disinfectant” even became “bleach”. But Biden and his criminal family get a pass on everything. This is how democracies fail. The USA won’t be immune when the time comes.