The lab-leak mess

Last week, Jonathan Chait, of New York magazine, took the “liberal media” to task for having rushed to repudiate “the lab-leak theory”—the idea that COVID-19 may have its origins in a research institute in Wuhan, China. The theory, Chait wrote, has recently “gained more and more credibility,” in sharp contrast to last year, when many mainstream journalists dismissed it “out of hand as a conspiracy theory”; in part, “they were deceived by some especially voluble public-health experts. In part, they simply took Donald Trump’s bait, answering the former president’s dissembling with false certainty of their own.” Trump and various right-wing boosters blurred together the possibility that COVID may accidentally have escaped from the lab and the unhinged idea that China released it intentionally as a bioweapon; in story after story, the press, Chait argued, tarred both notions with the same brush of condemnation, asserting as fact that COVID was natural in origin, and that suggestions to the contrary were unscientific, “debunked,” even racist. But COVID’s true origins are unknown, and news outlets, Chait wrote, ought to have “erred on the side of uncertainty” over dogma. “The lab-leak hypothesis may well turn out to be wrong,” he argued—but that won’t make all the hasty rebuttals right. Since Chait wrote, we’ve seen a gusher of opinion essays in the same vein, indicting the mainstream press and prominent experts for characterizing a plausible hypothesis as a conspiracy theory... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-06-02 12:40:56 UTC ]
News tagged with: #al jazeera #naomi osaka

Other Publishing stories related to: 'The lab-leak mess'


The lab-leak mess

Last week, Jonathan Chait, of New York magazine, took the “liberal media” to task for having rushed to repudiate “the lab-leak theory”—the idea that COVID-19 may have its origins in a research institute in Wuhan, China. The theory, Chait wrote, has recently “gained more and more credibility,” in... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-06-02 12:40:56 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #al jazeera #naomi osaka


In leaked memo, Apple says 12 employees were arrested last year for leaking information

Apple said 12 of its employees were arrested last year for leaking corporate information to the outside world, according to an internal company memo that itself was leaked to Bloomberg reporters. Cupertino-based Apple is notoriously secretive, but the lengthy memo, posted recently to its... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal

[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2018-04-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #bloomberg reporters


Spotify Already Messing Around With Audiobook Pricing

Spotify's... interesting pricing plans, it "It" books of March, and more of the day's bookish news: Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-03-01 21:43:16 UTC ]
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Some Authors Were Left Out of Awards Held in China. Leaked Emails Show Why.

When some books, including best sellers, were conspicuously absent from the science fiction Hugo Awards last year, writers and fans became suspicious. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2024-02-17 13:11:43 UTC ]
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IAB Tech Lab presents Google with Privacy Sandbox gap analysis following Annual Leadership Meeting

Frustrations over the most critical development in digital media shared at flagship industry conference. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2024-01-31 05:01:00 UTC ]
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German publisher halts sale of top author’s books after leak reveals he received €600,000 from Putin ally

Broadcaster NDR launches investigation after Hubert Seipel admits receiving support for work on two books on Russian leaderA German publisher has announced a stop to the sale of books authored by a leading journalist and Russia expert after an investigation showed he had received at least... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-11-15 14:31:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #vladimir putin #russian leader #german publisher


The Books We Need Now: A Reading List of Heroines Who Are Hot Messes

As long as you aren’t a sociopath, there’s a good chance you spend a lot of time in your head, thinking about all the dumb stuff you do. Maybe you ruminate about the message you sent to the bachelorette party thread that no one ‘liked’ for the last half-hour, which obviously means the Kristen... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-03-24 08:52:19 UTC ]
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Despite leaks, Prince Harry’s memoir is the UK’s fastest selling nonfiction title ever.

You don’t really have to do much at this point to absorb passages from Prince Harry’s public therapy tell-all trauma dump, Spare. So much of what’s in the book has already appeared in interviews, profiles and, thanks to a very aggressive British press, as actual text on the internet. Despite the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-12 15:22:07 UTC ]
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Review: Sarah Silverman’s ‘Bedwetter’ Musical Has Sprung a Leak

The comedian’s memoir was funny. But when the new show based on it tries for something deeper, it sinks into bathos. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-06-08 02:00:06 UTC ]
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Esper Says Trump Asked About Shooting Missiles Into Mexico To Target Drug Labs

“No one would know it was us,” the former president said, according to an upcoming memoir written by the former Pentagon chief. Continue reading at HuffPost

[ HuffPost | 2022-05-06 01:41:29 UTC ]
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Hitting the Books: Lab-grown meat is the future, just as Winston Churchill predicted

From domestication and selective breeding to synthetic insulin and CRISPR, humanity has long sought understand, master and exploit the genetic coding of the natural world. In The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology authors Amy Webb, professor of strategic... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2022-02-19 16:30:24 UTC ]
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Livid Trump Wanted Person Who Leaked Bunker Story Executed, New Book Claims

Trump was taken to the White House bunker during protests last year over the police killing of George Floyd. Continue reading at The Huffington Post

[ The Huffington Post | 2021-07-14 04:58:33 UTC ]
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How to build the city of the future, according to Ikea’s innovation lab

‘The Ideal City’ collects the most successful urban ideas from around the world, to serve as a sort of cookbook of best practices for city leaders. By the end of the century, if cities continue to grow at current rates, the world’s urban space may expand by 618,000 square miles—the equivalent... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2021-02-03 07:00:40 UTC ]
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Apparently, the White House turned the routine review process for Bolton’s book into a huge mess.

When John Bolton was preparing to publish The Room Where It Happened, his memoir of serving in the Trump White House, he and his legal team took the routine step of submitting it for review at the National Security Council. It was Ellen Knight’s job to oversee that process, as she had done... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-09-23 20:07:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #john bolton #legal team #memoir


“Breasts and Eggs” Grapples with the Weird Mess of Women’s Bodies

Though you’ve probably only learned Mieko Kawakami’s name recently, with the release of Breasts and Eggs from renowned indie press Europa Editions, she’s been a well-known figure in the Japanese literary world for several years. Haruki Murakami called her his favorite young novelist, and the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #electric literature #literary world


NBCC Board Gutted as Fallout Over Leaked Emails, Race Issues Widens

The turmoil that roiled the National Book Critics Circle last week continued throughout the weekend and into Monday morning as concerns over matters of race and privacy continue to split the organization's board of directors. As of press time, at least 13 members have resigned from the typically... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-15 04:00:00 UTC ]
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John Bolton’s memoir probably wasn’t leaked by a heroic assistant editor.

Some very important parts of former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming memoir, The Room Where It Happened: A Washington Memoir (Simon & Schuster, March 17), have leaked. The bit that everyone is talking about confirms that Donald Trump did, in fact, withhold aide to Ukraine... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-27 14:01:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #forthcoming memoir #john bolton #important parts #memoir


What Hearst is Testing and Learning Through the GNI Subscriptions Lab

Through the Google News Initiative Subscriptions Lab, ten local media organizations have been testing, learning and sharing findings related to Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-11-20 22:09:59 UTC ]
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Some lessons from the MIT Media Lab controversy

When the news first broke that the MIT Media Lab had a close relationship with deceased billionaire and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, some saw it as a momentary lapse in judgment, and there was widespread support for Media Lab director Joi Ito. But then New Yorker writer Ronan Farrow... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2019-10-03 10:50:57 UTC ]
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Edward Snowden explains how he pulled off one of the largest leaks in U.S. history

In his memoir, he recounts how a Rubik’s Cube helped him expose government secrets. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-09-13 22:18:36 UTC ]
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