A ‘Reckoning?’: Major Paper Becomes First Mainstream Outlet to Admit Suppressing Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was Wrong

In a Sunday editorial, the Washington Post recalled how major social and news media platforms actively censored an October 2020 New York Post exclusive about the curious contents of Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop. Dismissed at the time as “Russian disinformation,” Twitter and Facebook dampened the ability to share the story and media giants said that it wasn’t even a story, that the emails in the laptop could not be verified as coming from Biden. The New York Times was the first media institution to admit the story was legitimate in mid-March. The Washington Post admitted the same last week. But no major news outlet has admitted after this context that suppressing factual stories because they don’t fit a particular political narrative is wrong—until now. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1510680436791549952 “The Hunter Biden story is an opportunity for a reckoning,” reads the headline from the Washington Post editorial board, who, after explaining why many had good reason to be suspicious of the validity of the Biden story, also acknowledged that the “lesson learned from 2020 may well be that there’s also a danger of suppressing accurate and relevant stories.” Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald called the Washington Post’s admission “arrogant,” but also noted they remain the only outlet to admit they were wrong to suppress a factual story. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1510680746733756420 Greenwald also wondered if any other major news outlets or “DNC hack masquerading as a ‘journalist’” would do the same? https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1510681302625931273 Greenwald wasn’t the only left-leaning personality to hold establishment media responsible for this disservice to journalism. HBO’s Bill Maher said Friday, "So the New York Post got a hold of what was in the computer. And, you know, because the New York Post is a Republican paper, and The New York Times and The Washington Post are the Democratic paper[s]…  And the Republican paper, Twitter… canceled their account!” “They can't even report on this story,” Maher said on his program “Real Time.” “And now two years later, The New York Times and The Washington Post have come around and say, ‘Okay, there was something there.'" "It looks like the left-wing media just buried the story because it wasn't part of their narrative and that's why people don't trust the media," Maher added. https://twitter.com/BrentHBaker/status/1510231330885357577 One of Maher’s guests on Friday, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, shared similar thoughts. "This is part of the erosion of institutional trust, where one side feels like the media is on their side," Yang said. "And it does seem like this Hunter Biden laptop story did get buried because of the timing.” “I mean, it was coming out during the height of the election in 2020,” Yang observed. “And they did not want that out in the mainstream.”

Like this article? Check out the latest BASEDPolitics podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or below: