David Cole: Yes, Fauci Tortured Beagles

If this account is true, it gives real insight into media dishonesty.

   On Nov. 19, The Washington Post ran a 3,650-word “debunking” of the beagle story. The two authors, Pulitzer-winning Beth Reinhard and millennial newcomer Yasmeen Abutaleb, began by painting Fauci as the victim of “hate” and “death threats” as the result of a “misleading” campaign.
   Regarding the Fauci/NIAID beagle-torturing claims, Reinhard and Abutaleb (and the people they interviewed for the piece) dismissed them as “false,” “misinformation,” “bogus,” “conspiracy theories,” “ridiculous accusations and outright lies,” “dangerous to the entire field of science,” and “erroneous claims amplified by a right-wing echo chamber.” “Falsified misinformation” from “inflammatory right-wing media outlets and influencers” created “outrage that was supercharged” by “Republican operatives.”
   Yikes! Based on that verbiage, you’d think the Fauci/beagle story was, like…fake!
   But then you read the fine print in those 3,650 words and you realize that of the six beagle-torture studies WCW cited, five actually were funded by Fauci’s NIAID (including one in which beagles had their vocal cords cut “to protect the researchers from hearing loss” from the agonized wailing of the tortured dogs), and the sixth study claimed to have received NIAID funding when it was published in July, with the authors (and the peer-reviewed journal that carried the study) not “correcting” the claim of NIAID funding until Oct. 26.
   Armed with that, the smugs pounced (even though WaPo admitted that the funding correction only occurred because of publicity from the WCW campaign).
   So a rational person would conclude that WCW accurately reported on five studies and “trusted the scientists” on the sixth regarding their claims of funding, and because of WCW’s work, an erroneous claim of NIAID funding was corrected.
   It’s hard to see what WCW did wrong. Especially considering all the anti-WCW invective used in the piece.
   So I emailed Reinhard and Abutaleb. “Of the six beagle-torture experiments, we’re talking about five that were NIAID-funded, and one that wasn’t. Correct?”
   Reinhard replied, “Thanks for your sending your inquiry to postpr@washpost.com.”
   That was the extent of her reply.
   That woman won a Pulitzer.

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   Let that sink in. The WaPo called WCW’s claims “false,” “misinformation,” “bogus,” “conspiracy theories,” “ridiculous,” “lies,” “dangerous,” “erroneous,” and “falsified.” But the reporters agree that from July through October, WCW didn’t actually get anything wrong. Five studies were funded by NIAID, and the sixth claimed funding until the Oct. 26 “correction.”
   When the chronically corrupt PolitiFact also came to Fauci’s defense, I emailed the PolitiFact author, Bill McCarthy. Being a liar and hack, McCarthy refused to defend his piece (as in, he actually responded to say that he wasn’t gonna defend his piece).