When is a ’news story” not?

News Corp tabloid the Daily Telegraph carried this report on 2 May 2020 claiming it had a ‘bombshell dossier’ revealing China covered up the origins of coronavirus. Photograph: News Corp

The article linked to below (from the Guardian newspaper) looks at the coverage of a story purporting to provide evidence that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab. The writers have investigated the origins of the story and how it became distorted and blown out of proportion as it travelled around the world, aided by Murdoch media outlets.

It’s a great illustration of how a non-story becomes a story, and how the process can be accelerated and given impetus by individuals and organisations, spread across the planet, who find the information useful for their political agenda.

The exaggeration, and wilful misunderstanding/misinterpretation that seems to have gone on during the spread of this story show us why it is so important to have access to a variety of information sources that we can cross reference.

Link to original story:

A dodgy dossier? How News Corp hyped a US government reading list into a China coronavirus ‘bombshell’