Ex-NYT science editor calls out media for ignoring 'sustained Chinese propaganda' blocking COVID origin facts

Retired New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade joined "Life, Liberty & Levin" to discuss the origins of the coronavirus and what to think of grants given by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Disease (NIAID) – the latter headed by Anthony S. Fauci for many years – to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

"I think we see a sustained Chinese propaganda effort at work," Wade said when discussing why he has focused on the coronavirus origins. "But, you know, more than that, it was just the the blindness, if I could put it that way, of our media, we're too polarized to see scientific issues for their own sake without putting a political gloss on them."  "We don't know for sure: The origin of the virus is just we've got these two possible scenarios. But if you look at all the evidence and ask yourself, well, which scenario explains all these facts better on present evidence, it seems, to me at least, that the lab-escape hypothesis explains it a lot better," said Wade, who left the Grey Lady in 2012. "But it's a sort of complicated conclusion to arrive at. And I can only assume…that the media was blindsided – they didn't do the work that was necessary."