Bravo, Chris Cillizza

His apology this week was exactly what my threads seek to illicit

On X this past Monday, former CNN editor-at-large Chris Cillizza issued a mea culpa for his inaccurate and deceptive coverage of the COVID lab leak theory, the idea that, rather than starting in nature, the pandemic was released — either accidentally or deliberately — from a lab in Wuhan, China.

In his thread, he walks through not just what he got wrong — namely, that, as even the CIA has conceded, a lab leak is the going theory of potential origin — but why he erred.

The latter is far more interesting than the former and, in my humble opinion, really commendable. He explains that he “deferred to expert voices” when he shouldn’t have, and acknowledges that his feelings about Trump clouded his judgement. Spelled out in the light of day, it seems preposterous; but it was true, and being man enough to admit it thereafter is something critics should appreciate.

While the apology wasn’t perfect — he blames Dr. Fauci’s bad advice on the newness of the disease, which I think omits the doctor’s repeated deceptions around funding gain-of-function research, as I’ve argued elsewhere, and he omits that most of the industry (hat-tip to Josh Rogin!) — it’s precisely the type of thing that I do my threads (including this one on the lab leak — one of the worst media performances of my lifetime) in hopes of seeing.

Whatever his motives, there’s real contrition here, and an effort to address why he and so many others got this story so badly wrong.

We need much more of this, on the lab leak and far beyond, and this spirit of not just contrition but caution in Trump’s second term. Cillizza rightly points to the supposition he held that Trump was just full of it, generally, and specifically so on the lab leak. That seems to undergird much of the media’s coverage on everything Trump touches.

But that approach to covering Trump will only doom the media to more folly. They need to collectively set aside their political (and, to be sure, personal and human) feelings about the president, and take seriously the notion (which Cillizza acknowledges) that he may have information the journalists don’t, or aren’t inclined to believe.

If those who are critical of the media (yours truly, of course, included), then we have to be not just willing to but diligent in noting when the corporate press does an about-face when it gets the story wrong. Most of the press haven’t about the lab leak theory — and what could be a bigger story than the genesis of a global pandemic? Better media in this country demands more of this, and we happy media watchers should be delighted that someone — anyone — is at least willing to say “I screwed up” from the press cathedral.

So as the weekend begins, I raise my glass to none-other-than thread-favorite Chris Cillizza. May the scales fall from the eyes of others thanks to him.