CV NEWS FEED // Mainstream journalist Chris Cillizza apologized for the assumptions made in his 2020 coverage of the origin of COVID-19, in which he wrote that Dr. Anthony Fauci “crushed” President Donald Trump’s theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab.
Cillizza wrote on his X account that a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spokesperson recently stated, “CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting.”
The journalist noted that many prominent conservatives, including Trump had promoted this theory five years ago; however, Cillizza, who was writing for CNN at the time, had assumed that Trump must have been wrong.
“My belief back then was that if this was a debate between Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci on the origins of a pandemic-level virus, I was going to go with the guy who spent his entire career studying this stuff, not the reality TV-star-turned-president,” Cillizza wrote. “Except, it now appears that the reality TV-star-turned-president was right. And Anthony Fauci was wrong.”
Cillizza also noted that he made an error in assuming that Fauci, because he was an expert in the field, had all of the facts in an unprecedented case. He stated that as a result of his mistake, he should be skeptical, even of experts, in a complex and rapidly changing situation.
“The other major mistake I made was that I let my belief that Trump just, well, said stuff, get in the way of the possibility that he could be right,” Cillizza continued. He added that he believed Trump invented the story in order to blame China for the pandemic.
Cillizza added that it had never even occurred to him that as President of the United States, Trump could have access to information that the rest of the public did not have.
He stated that in the future, he should not assume Trump is always lying.
Drew Holden, the managing editor of American Compass, commended Cillizza for his public apology and correction.
“When there is some recognition that a reporter or outlet (or, in this case, the media as a whole — thread here) got a story wrong, we shouldn’t sneer at it, or look to find more flaws,” Holden wrote. “We should encourage it. It’s the only way the corporate press is going to get better.”
