Fauci and the Media

Why were we kept in the dark?

Today I published a story on Anthony Fauci that started with a simple, widely reported fact: Fauci is the highest paid member of the federal government. If you walk into that fact believing Fauci is Captain America in a lab coat, then everything is just as it should be.

But if you don’t, and you are able to step back and listen to the record screeching when you realize Fauci not only gets paid more than his direct boss (the head of the NIH), but the Big Boss of the entire federal government, the president, then you probably want to ask a question or two.

Let’s pause here for a moment to recognize that it’s great to have heroes. Especially when those heroes save you from a pandemic: even better. For most of the past three years, the media has provided a hero like none other. Anthony Fauci was a real-life hero, a Science hero, a super hero.

Far from that self-effacing hero who stands in the shadow beside the spotlight, Fauci was always willing to take credit where (he thought) credit was due. In this regard, the media did not restrain its generosity.

Time magazine anointed him a Guardian of the world. Disney+ produced a film called simply, Fauci. (Did you also get chills?) Bloomberg News just came out and said it—“Anthony Fauci: An Early Farewell to the Covid Pandemic Hero.”

But in its breathlessness over America’s hunkiest immunologist, the media forgot to…well, investigate Fauci. Not in the punitive sense that Balaji Srinivasan means when he speaks about “prosecutorial journalism.” Just the regular kind: digging for the facts, for the truth, for the whole story, even if it colors outside the narrative lines.

The fact is that Fauci was never who we thought he was. He was never who we were told he was. Far from a public health expert, Fauci is, in fact, a national security official. In many ways, he is the national security official, one who sits atop the command structure concerning the most lethal, advanced and terrifying form of warfare today: biodefense.

I recommend you read the whole piece—or at least meaningfully peruse it. Among other revelations, you’ll learn that:

• George Bush & Dick Cheney created the biodefense framework Fauci commands.

• Fauci oversees US biodefense, approves every project, military or civilian.

• Cheney had a liaison physically sit in Fauci’s office to oversee the creation of the new biodefense infrastructure.

• The risks of ramped-up biodefense were apparent even then.

• Joe Biden was closely involved in this effort.

But even if you don’t read it, you should still be asking the critical follow-on question:

How did no one look into this, until now? How did the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Business Insider—all of whom were eager to dedicate resources to push the false narrative that lab leak is a “fringe conspiracy theory”—never assign a reporter to investigate Fauci’s role in government?

I don’t have an answer, but I do know that the public was not well served by a hero narrative that elevated the ideas and policies of a single individual above those of anyone else.

The media will be the first to describe the dangers of hero worship when it comes to those in power. And yet, for two years it manufactured a hero who wields incredible power. Looking back, we can see the result. Fauci is a hero to the media. But to the public, which trusts him about as much as it trusts the media, he was another reason to be skeptical of super-narratives about our government’s supposed super-heroes.