Leaked copies of the World Health Organization’s compromised report on the origins of COVID-19 made their way through the media on Monday ahead of the official release. But while Disney-owned ABC was trying to prop up the dubious claim that the virus didn’t escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, NBC Nightly News was busy exposing evidence that the lab was capturing and breeding the kind of bats that carried coronaviruses.
During ABC’s World News Tonight, anchor David Muir crammed the WHO’s findings into a 24-second report where he brushed over the fact that China stonewalled investigators and signed off on every detail mentioned in the report’s conclusions:
And next, a report on the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, is due tomorrow. Reportedly concluding that the virus most likely spread directly from bats to another animal and then to humans. The 100-plus page report from the World Health Organization and China also finding it was, quote, “extremely unlikely” the virus escaped from a Wuhan lab.
Notice how Muir tried to suggest that the investigation and report were a joint effort by the WHO and China, and not just the latter censoring and manipulating the findings.
The only mention of controversy came when Muir tried to spin China’s meddling as isolated to the past. “China’s delay in allowing outside experts in has cast a shadow over the investigation,” he gaslit viewers.
The fact that this reporting came from a Disney-owned subsidiary should not be overlooked. Disney desperately wanted to retain its access to the Chinese consumer market, so it’s not surprising they would peddle the lies of the murderous regime. Remember, they thanked the operators of Uighur concentration camps for the privilege of filming Mulan nearby.
In stark contrast, NBC didn’t hold back as they laid out how China manipulated the investigation and showed hard evidence for how the lab was involved.
“Adding to the mystery tonight, NBC News confirming through patents that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been taking live bats from the wild since at least 2009, and in some cases keeping them for years,” reported senior international correspondent Keir Simmons. “In a 2018 patent, the WIV demonstrated it had designed cages for breeding bats.”
And as he concluded his report, Simmons held up the leaked report and called it out for being propaganda of the regime. “But tonight, other scientists have called for an independent investigation, noting that every conclusion in this report had to be signed off by China,” he announced.
As NewsBusters noted back in early February, ABC and CBS rushed to push the WHO’s dubious defense of the lab, but NBC was silent on the issue for days before telling viewers that lab workers were sick last fall. Now, we know what NBC had been working on all this time.
ABC’s cover for China was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Febreze and Gillette. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The transcript is below:
ABC’s World News Tonight
March 29, 2021
6:45:46 p.m. EasternDAVID MUIR: And next, a report on the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, is due tomorrow. Reportedly concluding that the virus most likely spread directly from bats to another animal and then to humans. The 100-plus page report from the World Health Organization and China also finding it was, quote, “extremely unlikely” the virus escaped from a Wuhan lab. China’s delay in allowing outside experts in has cast a shadow over the investigation.
