Fox News – CNN has long referred to itself as “the most trusted name in news” and famously launched its “Facts First” campaign during the Trump era, but like many other outlets, that sentiment fell by the wayside when it came to the COVID lab-leak theory.
In recent days, the theory that COVID originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been embraced by FBI Director Christopher Wray and a bombshell report indicated that the U.S. Energy Department believes the virus likely started in the lab, a sentiment expressed by top Trump administration officials nearly from the outset.
But in the early months of the pandemic, then-CNN president Jeff Zucker would not allow his network to chase down the lab-leak story because he believed it was a “Trump talking point,” according to a well-placed CNN insider.
“People are slowly waking up from the fog,” the insider told Fox News Digital. “It is kind of crazy that we didn’t chase it harder.”
“Throughout Zucker’s tenure as CNN’s chief, he pulled what was once widely seen as a straight-news organization to an anti-Trump operation. CNN bent over backwards to knock down what former President Trump and members of his administration said lending credibility to the lab-leak theory, as the White House was deemed a nemesis by the network.”
On March 28, 2020, CNN’s Oliver Darcy published a story headlined, “Here’s how to debunk coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories from friends and family,” that offered advice about dealing with pesky loved ones who didn’t believe in mainstream COVID-19 narratives at the time.
“While the coronavirus pandemic has isolated family and friends inside their homes, it has in many cases increased online or over-the-phone communication with loved ones,” Darcy wrote.
“But, in some cases, relatives and friends share poor information – whether it is bad science related to how to prevent the virus, debunked rumors about cities being put on lockdown, or conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid-19 … ”
