SGR

I have a feeling this goes deeper than just the media's disdain for Trump, though that probably played a part.

From what I've heard, Fauci was a part of the NIH and was involved in funding the lab and the gain-of-function research happening there. As far as I understand, the Obama administration had some part in greenlighting the operation, including the safety protocols. I don't know if that's true - but if it is, then the US would obviously have a motive in trying to cover up its role in the lab research.

Personally, I think, naive as it might be, that we should not ban this kind of virus research (well....maybe ban the gain-of-function stuff, but I'm not committed to that position), but we should approach it more similarly to nukes. Locations of viral research labs, the projects they're working on, what they've discovered etc. should have a hell of a lot more transparency than it currently does.

You've just missed the point.

The point was not that reporters/researchers ignored the lab theory. The point is that after scientists claimed that zoonotic origin was a more likely scenario a year ago (without concrete evidence), social media and news media took that and ran with it, actively suppressing discussions of the lab leak theory and castigating those that dared to espouse it.

This issue should not even have been political, but it was quickly made political. And then the respective news medias of both sides hastened to assign opinions to their viewers.