NY TIMES LIES

© MMXX V.1.0.0
by Morley Evans

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Jeremy R. Hammond

Throughout the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the New York Times, regarded as America’s “newspaper of record”, has been the standard-bearer for propagandistic reporting serving to manufacture consent for extreme and harmful “lockdown” policies by contributing to the sense of fear and mass panic among the public. To that end, the Times has consistently reported about viral transmission in an alarmist manner, delivering fearmongering messages that grossly misrepresent the science.

In part one of this series, we saw how the Times on March 17 characterized the science as if it had proven that the virus is airborne transmissible. Since the World Health Organization (WHO) maintained that this mode of transmission remained theoretical, the Times characterized it as having stubbornly refused to acknowledge the science. Yet, by examining the Times’ own cited sources, we could see that the WHO was right.[1]

In part two, we saw how the Times on March 31 similarly characterized the science as having firmly established that a fifth or more of community spread is driven by people who have no symptoms. Yet, not only did the Times fail to produce any studies to support that claim, but it went so far as to deceptively cite a study as proof even though its authors explicitly stated that there remained no clear evidence of asymptomatic transmission.[2]

In part three, we saw how the Times on June 5 falsely characterized the WHO as having belatedly and reluctantly endorsed government policies recommending—or, as is the case in numerous states, mandating—the universal use of masks in the community setting. In fact, the WHO had rightly observed that such policies are not evidence-based and instead reasonably advised that masks be worn by members of the public in circumstances in which there is community spread and prolonged close contact with others is unavoidable.[3]

In sum, the narrative pushed by the Times is that community spread is largely driven by asymptomatic individuals including through virus-laden aerosols, as distinguished from larger respiratory droplets that scientists believe to be the primary mode of transmission. This narrative instils fear in people that they could become infected, for example, by momentarily passing an unmasked person in a supermarket aisle, by entering an airspace someone else had occupied several minutes earlier, or even by just being in the same building with despite maintaining a considerable distance from an infected person.

While the March 17 article included the caveat that, even if airborne, a person would still need to be within a few feet of an infected person for there to be a significant risk of transmission, this acknowledgement came only later in the article, with the headline and first half of the piece serving to instil fear.[4] In the March 31 article, the Times further acknowledged that a passing close encounter would not be enough and that the close contact would need to occur for a prolonged duration for the risk of infection to be high.[5] Hence, the WHO’s mask guidance made sense even if the airborne transmission is assumed to play a significant role in community spread.[6]

Yet, because the information from the WHO contradicted the story that the Times preferred to convey to the public, the author of all three of those articles, Apoorva Mandavilli, set out to sustain the fearmongering narrative by further mischaracterizing both the WHO’s position and the science