Look Who Silently Scrubbed ‘China Virus’ From Early Pandemic Coverage
The New York Times quietly edited its early articles on the COVID-19 pandemic to scrub the phrases “China virus” and “Wuhan virus,” only to hit President Donald Trump for using the same terms weeks later, according to a review of archived versions of several early pandemic stories.
“Whistle-Blower On China Virus Succumbs to It,” reads the headline of a Feb. 6, 2020, story describing the death of Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist who raised the alarm about the spread of a SARS-like pneumonia with friends on social media and later died with COVID-19. By the next day, the headline on the outlet’s website read differently: “Chinese Doctor, Silenced After Warning of Outbreak, Dies From Coronavirus.”
The Times also deleted references to the “Wuhan virus” to describe the emerging novel coronavirus from stories in January and February 2020, according to archived versions available in LexisNexis reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. None of the stories disclose the change through corrections or clarifications.
A Feb. 11, 2020 article about the virus’ spread in Indonesia originally stated that “Indonesia has three laboratories capable of testing for the Wuhan virus.” The article was quietly amended a day later to read, “Indonesia has three laboratories capable of testing for the new coronavirus.”
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