The media's dubious about-face on coronavirus risks

It's time to stop gaslighting people about this pandemic

A person enjoying a hike.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

If a ludicrous media consensus is abandoned overnight, did it ever really exist? This is a question many of us have been asking ourselves for nearly two decades about the Iraq war, which practically no one is willing to defend these days.

In 2003 the situation was very different; that Saddam Hussein had acquired "weapons of mass destruction" (what sort was neither clear nor especially important) and willing to employ them (from half a world away, against the world's most powerful military) was not seriously questioned by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or indeed any organ of public opinion save for a handful of blogs and the then-newly founded American Conservative magazine. The handful of dissidents were reviled as dumb hippies or "unpatriotic conservatives"; the terms of the debate, such as it was, were personal, not empirical.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.