来源 | 西西弗评论
本文系作者授权转载
西方媒体越堕落，越极端，他们的公信力流失得就越快。
01
2月13日，《纽约时报》刊发了一篇报道，宣称在WHO（世界卫生组织）对中国的新冠溯源调查中，中国拒绝向WHO提供关键数据。
文中重点“引用”了四名WHO专家团成员的言论。
然而，文章刊发后，四名被引用专家中的两人(拥有英美两国国籍的Peter Daszak和丹麦专家Thea Fischer)，在社交媒体上直接发言，反驳《纽约时报》的报道，并称报道歪曲了专家的言论，是虚假报道。
澳大利亚专家Dominic Dwyer和德国专家Fabian Leendertz，好像没有社交媒体账号，但两个人都有一个视频采访。采访的原始内容与这些西方媒体的报道也大相径庭。
纽约时报的这个报道，以及类似的报道，在其他西方媒体上也比比皆是。
WHO的专家们非常愤慨，话说得很重。
比如拥有英美两国国籍，目前在美国居住的 Peter Daszak，这样说纽约时报：
“听听、听听！我们花时间和记者解释了我们在中国长达一个月疲惫工作中的关键发现，而我们同事所说的话却在工作还没开始前就被（媒体）断章取义地用来编自己的报道，这真的令人失望。《纽约时报》，你真无耻！”
一名知名的美国科学家，把“Shame on you” 这三个字用在《纽约时报》这家西方世界最负盛名的媒体上，令我大吃一惊。这三个字充分显示了科学家的愤怒。
Daszak还说：“这不是我在世卫组织任务中的经历，作为动物和环境工作组的负责人，我感到中国同行们坦率并值得信任，我们确实获得了关键的新数据，我们也了解到更多关于病毒传播途径的信息。”
另一名纽约时报文章中提到的丹麦科学家Thea Fischer 也很愤怒，她说：
“这也不是我在流行病学团队得到的经验，中国方面和国际流行病学团队建立了良好的关系，（我们）进行的热烈讨论也反应了（中国方面的）高度参与。我们说的话被故意歪曲，这为重要的科学工作蒙上阴影。”
02
大家有兴趣可以看一下《纽约时报》报道的全文（原文放在文末了）。
我这里简单给大家看看《纽约时报》是怎么扭曲专家们的原始言论，恶意带节奏的。
比如，纽约时报文章中引用了Fischer（费舍尔）教授的这样一段话。
“It was my take on the entire mission that it was highly geopolitical,” Dr. Fischer said. “Everybody knows how much pressure there is on China to be open to an investigation and also how much blame there might be associated with this.”
“我对整个任务的看法是，这个任务是高度地缘政治化的，”费舍尔博士说。“每个人都知道中国受到了多大的压力，（这些压力）要求中国对调查持开放态度，也知道可能会有多少（对中国）责怪与此相关。”
如果我们单独看这样一句话，费舍尔博士的意思其实是，西方社会政治化新冠疫情，给了中国巨大的压力，中国背了很大的锅。
原话本身是在为中国抱不平。
但《纽约时报》在这段话之前，写了很长一段话，说中国给WHO施加压力。之后又写了一长段话，说WHO团队无奈寻求妥协。
这种春秋笔法，就把费舍尔博士口中所说的，西方给中国巨大的压力，完全曲解成了费舍尔抱怨中国给WHO施压。
费舍尔博士说的，是“Pressure ON China”，不是“Pressure From China”。
《纽约时报》的这种写法，真是非常阴险狠毒！
澳大利亚广播公司记者 Bill Birtles，在推特上发了一段视频采访。
他的推特是这么写的：
“澳大利亚世卫组织#covid专家团队成员Dominic Dwyer说，尽管没有明确的发现，但澳大利亚/欧盟最初呼吁的国际调查是值得的。他说，中国科学家提供了大量此前未发表的数据……但在获取数据方面存在紧张关系和明显的政治压力。”
那么事实又是如何？
澳大利亚专家，Dominic Dwyer，在视频访谈中，确实提到了政治压力（Political Pressure)。但他明确地说，这种压力并非中国给专家团队的压力，而是外界给中国的政治压力。专家团队并没有受到什么压力。
但在这个澳大利亚记者的推特上，却故意曲解专家的意思，然后在政治压力这几个字上大做文章。
当澳大利亚记者问Dwyer，你对中国方面提供的资料是否满意时，Dwyer的回答是：“比较满意，当然也没有可能100%确认所有的事情。”
而记者在写文章中，比较满意这个表述就根本没出现过。
Dwyer说，由于语言不同，在调查证据和线索时遇到了不少困难。
而在媒体报道中，“由于语言不同”这个原因被刻意的省略了。
Dwyer提到了有些场合的工作气氛是紧张的，但他马上说，中方团队都是专业友好的，都是好人（Good Human)。
同样的，后半句在西方媒体报道中也被省略了。
在纽约时报文章的结尾，引用了Daszak的两段话。一段是Daszak形容这个调查令人情绪低落（ emotionally draining）。采访中几个专家都提到这个调查非常辛苦，一天工作十五个小时，还需要接触早期患者，阅读他们的案例和不幸的故事，所以情绪低落。
但纽约时报在长篇累牍的报道中，虚构中国给调查组施压，给调查组制造困难之后，再用这个情绪低落的词，让读者潜意识中认为，调查组情绪低落是因为中国的干扰和施压。
同样，结尾引用Daszak的这段话：“ 世界并没有意识到，你知道，他们（中国）是第一个遭遇这个东西的人，” Daszak博士说，“他们那时不知道问题有多糟糕。”
“The world doesn’t realize, you know, that they were the first to get this thing,” Dr. Daszak said, “and they didn’t know how bad it was.”
这句话的本意是什么呢？
其实是说中国是闭卷考试，病毒爆发时，对情况完全不了解，应对难度远远大于后面的其他国家。
但在《纽约时报》的笔下，给读者的印象却是，专家认为病毒是从武汉起源，认为中国政府隐瞒病毒的严重性。
03
作为媒体，寻求真相，找社会中的负面，提出批评，都是可以接受和应该鼓励的。
但前提是，媒体的报道必须建立在事实之上。
可新冠疫情这件事，已经被西方世界高度政治化了。
忽视科学，把新冠疫情地缘政治化的，不是我们，而是西方国家的政府和媒体。
因为高度政治化，西方国家的政府和媒体，就可以无视科学，无视真相，信口雌黄，肆意抹黑。
现在，把一切事情都政治化，意识形态化的，恰恰就是那群叫嚣着“客观、中立、言论自由”的西方媒体。
前几天，托马斯·弗里德曼稍微说了两句正常的话（说中国高铁比美国快，中国内部团结努力奋进），就被美国媒体说成亲华亲共。
要知道，弗里德曼长期以来对中国的态度，已经属于非常不友好的那种了。
由此可见，美国现在真的是“谈华色变”。
反华已经是他们“不可侵犯”的政治正确。
04
有些朋友很担心，觉得新冠疫情之后，各国对中国的印象都在快速下跌，好感变少，恶感变多。
坦率地说，这是事实。
但这并没什么可担心的。
有句俗话：不招人妒是庸才。
你原本比别人落后很多，现在却做得还比别人还好，自然会被人攻击和嫉妒。
在西方媒体极端化意识形态化，天天抹黑中国的今天，西方老百姓对中国的印象能好吗？
但这个事情我们根本没必要着急。
西方媒体越偏激，越罔顾事实，我们越应该高兴。
因为他们在自毁长城，摧毁自己的公信力。
我这个年龄段中的很多人，原本对西方媒体的信任，是远远高于对国内的媒体的。
这种信任是怎么逐步丧失的呢？
恰恰就是当西方媒体对我们身边事情的报道，和我们了解的到事实真相截然不同时，我们自然就不会再信任他们。
以今天提到的这个事情为例：
当WHO的专家，发现《纽约时报》对他们亲身经历的事情，亲口所说的观点肆意歪曲时，他们对《纽约时报》的信任自然就会动摇。
他们也会怀疑，《纽约时报》对中国的其他报道，比如关于新疆，香港的报道，是不是也完全不符合真相？
“多行不义必自毙。”
就让西方媒体，在作死的路上越走越远吧。
他们越堕落，越极端，越政治化，他们的公信力流失得就越快。
On W.H.O. Trip, China Refused to Hand Over Important Data
The information could be key to determining how and when the outbreak started, and to learning how to prevent future pandemics.
By Javier C. Hernández and James Gorman
Chinese scientists refused to share raw data that might bring the world closer to understanding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, independent investigators for the W.H.O. said on Friday.
The investigators, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to the Chinese city of Wuhan, said disagreements over patient records and other issues were so tense that they sometimes erupted into shouts among the typically mild-mannered scientists on both sides.
China’s continued resistance to revealing information about the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the scientists say, makes it difficult for them to uncover important clues that could help stop future outbreaks of such dangerous diseases.
“If you are data focused, and if you are a professional,” said Thea Kølsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist on the team, then obtaining data is “like for a clinical doctor looking at the patient and seeing them by your own eyes.”
For 27 days in January and February, the team of 14 experts for the World Health Organization led the mission to trace the origins of the pandemic. Several say their Chinese counterparts were frustrated by the team’s persistent questioning and demands for data.
Chinese officials urged the W.H.O. team to embrace the government’s narrative about the source of the virus, including the unproven notion that it might have spread to China from abroad, according to several members of the team. The W.H.O. scientists responded that they would refrain from making judgments without data.
“It was my take on the entire mission that it was highly geopolitical,” Dr. Fischer said. “Everybody knows how much pressure there is on China to be open to an investigation and also how much blame there might be associated with this.”
In the end, the W.H.O. experts sought compromise, praising the Chinese government’s transparency, but pushing for more research about the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019.
It remains unclear if the compromise will work. Chinese officials told the team that they did not have enough time to compile detailed patient data and only provided summaries. The W.H.O. scientists said they were continuing to press their counterparts in China for the raw data and other information.
The team members considered the trip, which ended this week, as a win mostly because they feel there is enough good will that talks and studies will continue. But they acknowledged there is too little information so far to answer critical questions.
And they were criticized already for handing the Chinese side a public relations victory at a closing news conference by endorsing the contentious idea that the virus might have spread by frozen food products.
On the crucial question of when the outbreak started, the team said it had not turned up evidence yet that it was earlier than China has reported. But the team was stymied at times by the lack of detailed patient records both from early confirmed cases, and possible ones before that.
“We asked for that on a number of occasions and they gave us some of that, but not necessarily enough to do the sorts of analyses you would do,” said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist on the W.H.O. team, referring to the confirmed cases.
The news that Chinese officials did not share raw data with the W.H.O. experts was reported earlier by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Wall Street Journal.
The Chinese scientists also acknowledged they had discovered that 92 people were hospitalized in Wuhan as early as October 2019 with symptoms such as fever and coughing. The Chinese experts said they had found no trace of Covid-19 in those people, but the tests were incomplete. The W.H.O. team members said more research was needed.
Any indication that the outbreak started earlier than December 2019 would leave China open to more criticism; Chinese officials have been widely criticized for initially trying to cover up the outbreak, and acting too late to stop it from spilling over into the rest of the world.
This was never going to be an easy trip.
The W.H.O. mission was embroiled in politics even before it began. For months, some officials in China and the United States accused each other, without evidence, of unleashing the virus on the world. China pushed back against pressure from Western countries to allow an independent inquiry into the source of the virus.
After months of negotiations, Beijing relented after the W.H.O., which is beholden to member countries like China, agreed to cede control over key parts of the inquiry to Chinese scientists.
And the logistics of the trip made already fraught relations even more tense. The W.H.O. team was forced into quarantine for the first two weeks, so meetings were conducted on Zoom. And even when the members emerged, rules to thwart outbreaks in China meant that the team could not gather with their counterparts for meals and informal talks.
It has been difficult to get an understanding of how the Chinese side viewed relations; several of the Chinese scientists assisting in the mission did not respond to requests for comment.
The W.H.O. team, which is expected to release a full report about its findings in coming weeks, is still pressing Chinese officials to conduct exhaustive checks of blood samples for signs that the virus might have been circulating earlier. The experts are also asking China to more deeply investigate the wildlife trade in Wuhan and the surrounding area for clues about how the virus might have jumped from animals to humans.
It is unclear how fully the Chinese government — which remains in firm control of research into the origins of the virus — will cooperate.
When the experts arrived in Wuhan last month, they set out to find the earliest known cases of Covid-19, asking Chinese officials to examine records for patients who had been hospitalized with symptoms such as fever and cough as early as October 2019.
Chinese scientists, after a review of 76,000 records at 233 medical institutions in Wuhan, told the W.H.O. team that they had found 92 individuals who fit that description. The government performed antibody tests on two-thirds of those people and reported that they were not positive for Covid-19. (The other third either died or declined to be tested, the Chinese scientists said.)
The W.H.O. scientists were frustrated by the Chinese government’s reluctance to explain how they had gathered the data, according to interviews with team members.
Dr. Fischer said she would have expected to find many more cases of individuals who were hospitalized with such symptoms in a city the size of Wuhan.
In heated discussions, Dr. Fischer recounted, the W.H.O. experts urged the Chinese scientists to conduct a more thorough search. The team also expressed concerns about the reliability of antibody tests administered so long after the infections. Testing any original nose or throat swabs would be useful, but Dr. Dwyer said there were none.
Chinese officials agreed to look more broadly at samples in Wuhan blood banks in 2019, though they said that they had not yet obtained permission to do so.
The W.H.O. experts ultimately concluded that there was no evidence yet that the virus was transmitting on a wide scale in China before December 2019, but that more research definitely was needed.
Chinese commentators have seized on that finding to build on the government’s mantra that it was possible that China was not the source of the outbreak, and to urge the W.H.O. to look elsewhere.
The W.H.O. team said it would look, but that they were skeptical.
“I think it started in China,” Dr. Dwyer said after the trip. “There is some evidence of circulation outside China, but it’s actually pretty light.”
The seafood market in Wuhan where the outbreak was first noticed.
During the visit, Chinese scientists also urged the W.H.O. team to consider the frozen-food theory that has gained traction in the country.
The W.H.O. team ultimately agreed to explore in more detail how the virus might spread through frozen food. But in interviews, team members said the focus for now would be on frozen wildlife products sold in China — not imported food.
The idea that the virus might have initially spread to humans from frozen wildlife products is a “very unlikely scenario,” said Fabian Leendertz, a German zoonotic disease specialist and a member of the team. He said the team agreed to include the frozen food theory among its hypotheses “to respect, a bit, the findings” of the Chinese scientists.
Peter Daszak, a member of the W.H.O. team and the president of EcoHealth Alliance in New York, said the trip was emotionally draining, as he and the team came to terms with the trauma of the early days of the pandemic. The team interviewed some of the first people to fall ill with Covid-19 in Wuhan, as well as medical workers.
“The world doesn’t realize, you know, that they were the first to get this thing,” Dr. Daszak said, “and they didn’t know how bad it was.”
