The Mainstream Media Just DIED
Boris Johnson, Steven Bartlett & A Covid Lab Accident
“I think it almost certainly was a lab accident.”
These words come not from a conspiracy theory outsider or a cancelled celebrity who found God in response to rape allegations but from the former prime minister of the UK, Boris Johnson. Do not underestimate their importance in the battle between truth and fiction or alternative media and the mainstream.
That Boris espoused this theory - one so toxic that it would have had you banned from both mainstream TV and social media just a few years ago - on the country’s biggest podcast Diary of a CEO - is even more incredible.
Just a few years from blanket bans, this “theory” is entertained - or at least unchallenged - even by the country’s most marketable and inoffensive BBC mainstay, Steven Bartlett.
“There was a certain gingerliness,” adds Boris about the World Health Organization, “about seeming to finger the Chinese too much”.
What do we make of this?
Firstly, it’s important to note that the lab leak theory remains just that. We may never know the origin of Covid. But the accusation of racism and conspiracy aimed at anyone who suggested it has now proven utterly wrong.
We Need Closure
Then - as my previous article alludes to - where are the apologies? Perhaps it’s perceived as childish or myopic to insist on an apology. But how do we get closure without one? How do we ensure that those who bullied, hunted and tarnished those who were willing to stick their heads about the parapet aren’t able to do so next time?
The BBC, CNN, MSNBC and NPR took a strong stance against the lab leak theory. Mainstream punishment and retribution were so strong that even pre-Musk Twitter and many of the alternative spaces fell in line.
Without apology or admission of fault from legacy media, how does Dr. Li-Meng Yan put the pieces of her life back together? She fled China to the U.S. and published controversial papers suggesting a lab origin. She faced significant pushback from the scientific community, with many dismissing her claims as unsubstantiated.
Major platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, flagged her statements as misinformation. She lost her professional standing within the academic community in Hong Kong and became a highly polarizing figure.
YouTube—my platform of choice—is just as guilty, as evolutionary biologist Dr. Bret Weinstein and many others who suggested Covid might be a lab leak would attest.
The Fightback
So, how was Boris able to espouse the lab theory with little pushback on a major show on YouTube? I believe we’ve entered the Musk era. Musk is human; he gets things wrong. His humour is facile and muddies his points.
He has, however, accomplished more than any human alive for the future of mankind, not only through his rockets and other groundbreaking innovations but also by going to war with the mainstream and advertisers.
This meant that YouTube, Facebook, and Musk’s other competitors—who have too long kneeled to outrageous advertiser demands—had to hold off on censorship, lest their audiences leave for X (Twitter).
I’ve noticed this myself on YouTube.
While creators still have to be careful about certain trigger words - such as the C word or the P word for those bad people who target kids - the platform has allowed me to make reasonable arguments against fashionable ideologies in a way that would be unacceptable on the BBC or any of the mainstream news channels.
Many still believe that YouTube continues to “shadowban” (stifle the videos of) gender realists, but my video with Ritchie Herron last month has 1.5 million views. We must be careful not to fall into the same trap as the woke by claiming victimhood and conspiracy.
YouTube permitted me - without demonetisation or shadowbanning - to have a frank and profound conversation with developmental biologist Dr Emma Hilton. In it, she explained precisely why Olympic boxer Imane Khelif is a man.
It’s incredible that—in mainstream circles—it remains a “fact” that he’s a woman. The BBC goes a step further in its fervent ideological gush, in celebrating a man beating up women as some kind of victory for the marginalised and even going so far as to accuse detractors of racism against Algerians.
That’s the state of play right now regarding the fictions of the mainstream. The Telegraph reported that the BBC has broken guidelines more than 1,500 times in its biased reporting against Israel.
Does this surprise you?
Duty of Care
None of this is to say that independent creators like me are perfect alternatives. We don’t have the resources to employ teams of fact-checkers. We don’t have legal checks. And there’s a duty of care to consider.
Before I released my exorcism documentary on the BBC, they had me return to Argentina to check on the abusive exorcist’s victims and make sure they would be able to cope with the documentary’s broadcast.
In reality, it’s all for show - would we really have pulled the entire broadcast if an interviewee (who had signed a release form) changed her mind at the last minute? That simply doesn’t happen.
The Cure is the Illness
I hope my interviewees on Heretics would say I treat them with care.
It’s also undoubtedly true that these very checks in the big institutions are responsible for groupthink and falsehoods. Duty of care is a wonderful and necessary implementation when making documentaries, but think how it might prevent a mainstream TV channel from getting to the truth in the era of #BeKind, Self ID, and My Truth.
13 years ago, BBC favourite Stacey Dooley made a documentary exposing the radical Islamism that had taken over her home town of Luton. Imagine that being made today. Duty of care wouldn’t allow for it.
Legal checks also serve a purpose—and defamed figures can sue us YouTubers, too—but again, groups such as the BBC err on the side of caution, which is another barrier to truth.
It’s not just truth that is at stake, but art and entertainment. This is always the way in oppressive societies.
Legacy media is becoming increasingly stale, its creative edge blunted by wokeness. The public gets 30 per cent of its news on social media now. This is rising fast. The old TV channels know that - with their legal and groupthink impediments - they can’t compete with socials and indies for cutting edge. So they offer the alternative: dull, safe and reliable.
This is, of course, ironic because what this leads to is utterly unreliable fake news from a cult of media totally out of step with the ordinary people it pretends to serve.
The Cycle
This isn’t new, of course - but here’s my greatest fear:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Heretics with Andrew Gold to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.