‘Disinformation By Omission’: Former NYT Editor Rips CNN Right To Brian Stelter’s Face

Former New York Times editor Bari Weiss grilled CNN’s Brian Stelter Sunday on CNN and other networks’ alleged involvement in pushing “disinformation” by not covering a story out of fear of the cancel culture mob.

While speaking on “Reliable Sources,” Weiss said the “world has gone mad” as news outlets become hesitant to report on issues like the lab leak theory or acknowledge the biological differences between men and women out of fear of being labeled as prejudiced.

“When you have the chief reporter on the beat of COVID for The New York Times talking about how questioning or pursuing the question of the lab leak is racist, the world has gone mad. When you’re not able to say out loud and in public that there are differences between men and women, the world has gone mad,” Weiss said.

“When we’re not allowed to acknowledge that rioting is rioting, and it is bad, and that silence is not violence but violence is violence, the world has gone mad. When we’re not able to say that Hunter Biden’s laptop is a story worth pursuing, the world has gone mad.”

Stelter asked “who” is stopping the coverage of the aforementioned stories.

“Who are they?” he pressed.

“People that work at networks like, frankly, like the one I’m speaking on right now, who try and claim that it was racist to investigate the lab leak theory,” Weiss shot back.

“Who said that at CNN?” Stelter said, calling Weiss’ assertion “provocative.”

“You and I both know, and it would be delusional to claim otherwise that touching your finger to an increasing number of subjects that have been deemed third rail by the mainstream institutions… will lead to reputational damage, perhaps you losing your job, your children sometimes being demonized as well and so what happens is a kind of an internal self censorship.”

NPR announced in 2020 they would not cover the Hunter Biden laptop story because the organization didn’t “want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

NPR called the story a “politically driven event” despite the New York Post and the Daily Caller News Foundation reviewing the laptop’s content.

Weiss said reporters were scared to speak out about issues that could essentially blacklist them or get them attacked by the cancel culture mob. She said reporters feel it’s best to practice “double think” and give up pursuing stories that go against the grain “in the freest society in the history of the world.”

“That is one of the great stories of our time, and that is the story that’s been uncovered largely not because of disinformation or not because they’re lying about it, simply because they’re ignoring it, it’s disinformation by omission.” (RELATED: FORMER NYT Writer Blasts Newspaper For Hypocrisy, Tells Megyn Kelly That It’s Become A Place Where You’re ‘Fired For’ Publishing Conservatives)

Meanwhile, when it came to the coronavirus lab leak theory, outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post dismissed the theory early on as a “fringe theory” that lacked evidence. The theory has since gained the deserved attention from corporate media outlets that once sought to dismiss it.

Washington Post senior reporter Aaron Blake recently wrote that “it has become evident that some corners of the mainstream media overcorrected when it came to one particular theory from Trump and his allies: that the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than naturally.”

“It’s also true that many criticisms of the coverage are overwrought and that Trump’s and his allies claims invited and deserved skepticism.”