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NYT COVID reporter’s claim of lab-leak theory’s ‘racist roots’ hints at paper’s news priorities

A New York Times reporter’s flippant dismissal of the increasingly popular “lab-leak” COVID-19 origin theory offers a revealing glimpse into the newspaper’s pandemic news priorities 18 months into the health crisis that has pervaded world media coverage since early last year.

Apoorva Mandavilli, a longtime science reporter who has been a full-time writer at the Times since May of last year, suggested on Wednesday that growing suspicions that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese virology lab are both misguided and bigoted.

“Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots,” she wrote on Twitter. “But alas, that day is not yet here.”

Mandavilli subsequently deleted that tweet. In a followup post she did not retract her earlier claim about the theory’s “racist roots” but rather said that it had been “badly phrased.”

“The origin of the pandemic is an important line of reporting that my colleagues are covering aggressively,” she wrote.

By Thursday evening Mandavilli’s Twitter account appeared to be no longer active. She did not respond to inquiries seeking more information about her opinions on the theory and the reason for her account’s disappearance.

Yet her suggestion that the lab-leak theory is both “racist” and unworthy of the discussion it has provoked may shed light on the pandemic coverage priorities of one of the world’s most influential papers. . .

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May 27, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 53 Minutes 11 Seconds

Nine victims of California’s massive shooting were honored at a press conference, 22 state attorneys general take issue with President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and Texas works to tackle the influx of the deadly drug fentanyl coming from Mexico. Cuban Star Defects to US.

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Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded May 27, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 19 Seconds

Episode 979 – The HQ of the Runaway Train … Rachel Maddow’s Anna Karenina Moment. Guests are: Sean Parnell, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani.

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Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded May 27, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 30 Seconds

Episode 980–The Border Tipping Point…Peter Navarro on the Stolen Election and Desperation in Del Rio. Guests are: Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Peter Navarro, Ben Bergquam, Mike Miller.

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Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded May 27, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds

Episode 981 – Never Trump’s No Personality Cult … MTG and Gaetz Say Populism is GOP’s Future in GA. Ryan says it is a “cult of personality” “just because Paul Ryan has no personality,” Gaetz said. Guests are: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Raheem Kassam, Matt Gaetz, Heather Mullins, Suarabh Sharma.

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The Real Story – OAN America’s Audit Resumes with Ken Bennet

Ken Bennet, Arizona Audit Liaison, gives The Real Story on the Maricopa County Audit and why Democrats all of a sudden want one too.

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May 26, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 53 Minutes 11 Seconds

9 Killed in San Jose Rail Yard Shooting; Judge Dismisses Steve Bannon Indictment. FBI agents, firefighters, and the sheriff’s department respond to a shooting in Silicon Valley, ATF director nominee David Chipman said he supports banning America’s most popular rifle, and bipartisan skepticism persists in the Senate for the Endless Frontier Act.

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Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded May 26, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 28 Seconds

Episode 976 – Willie Sutton’s Anti-Bank Robbery Commission. Guests are: Rudy Giuliani, Nigel Farage, Sheriff Mark Lamb.

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Dr. Marty Makary on the U.S. Health Care System | Video: 1 Hour 21 Seconds

“Many times the solutions are bipartisan, but the media sort of polarizes folks. And so I tell folks turn off these echo chambers, of you know, of the right versus the left. When President Trump announced price transparency as a new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services, I did not hear a single Democrat speak in opposition to it. How can you be opposed to price transparency? Yet the American Hospital Association filed a lawsuit the next week to block it. The media didn’t cover the story at all, I believe, in part, because he did the right thing. He did a bi-partisan good solution. He took initiative, something that no other president had done on this issue. And so, you have really, a complete suppression of what is the biggest health care story, of our, of the last 5 years, The Price Transparency Executive Order. Yet no attention in the media. No opposition, but at the same time no action and the special interests in Washington, D.C. move in to block it.” ~ Dr. Marty Markary, John Hopkins University, @ 57:29 of interview.
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Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded May 26, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 51 Seconds

Episode 977 – The Uncontrolled Opposition… Marjorie Taylor Greene on Why the Establishment Fears Her. “If they’re that afraid to talk to me, you think they can talk to a Democrat?” he said. “How can they have any kind of courage? They’re cowards, both of them are cowards. Either that or they’re hiding something that’s so beyond anything we can imagine.” Guests are: Mike Lindell, Mary Ann Mendoza, C.L. Bryant, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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