There are various truths upon which one can always rely. The sun will rise in the east, set in the west, and the media will tie itself into an utterly contrived and convoluted, self-righteous, twisted mess over any perceived slight against The Narrative. Part of this process is rising like ten thousand sword-bearing angels to attack anyone and everyone who dares speak against an anointed conduit of unchallenged truth. A case in point is how Reuters, USA Today, and Snopes have all come to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s defense in the matter of his not saying, in a 2008 study he co-authored, that mask-wearing during the 1918 influenza pandemic contributed to its death toll. The problem is absolutely no one of note has said he did say that.

Since reading for the media is apparently even harder than math for Barbie, we open our examination of this silliness, which took place last year yet only now is being picked up on by Twitter, by looking at the Reuters story, written with such precision it carries this statement at the top:

Correction October 28, 2020: This article previously linked to a similar 2008 study (here) that was not co-authored by Fauci. Correcting link in paragraph three to study co-authored by Fauci (here).

Now there is some Pulitzer-quality prose right there. But I digress.

The story screams that nefarious Twitterati claim the study co-authored by Dr. Fauci stated that people died from bacterial pneumonia caused by masks, which it does not. The problem is, the original Twitter thread from which this is drawn at no time says the report makes this claim.

Colleen Huber wrote the tweet in question last October. According to her bio, Ms. Huber, whose Twitter account has since been suspended, is a naturopathic medical doctor. Her statement was:

Dr. Fauci’s research team found bacterial pneumonia in every specimen studied of every “Spanish Flu” cadaver in above paper. In our paper (which ResearchGate censored, and is now here below), we argue that finding is most likely due to #masks.

The tweet links to this study.

Buried deep within the Reuters study is an acknowledgment that Ms. Huber at no time said the paper Dr. Fauci co-authored stated bacterial pneumonia cited in his article stemmed from wearing masks. There is also the matter that mask construction methods have doubtless improved in the past 103 years. Regardless, the story thunders on, including tweets from unknowns challenging Ms. Huber’s conclusions and credentials.

Next up is USA Today, which drinks deeply from the outrage well filled with ink drawn from a Facebook user’s digital pen. Said user refers to another Facebook user’s assertion regarding a link between masks and bacterial pneumonia. But fear not, intrepid readers, USA Today assures us it has reached out to the two scalawags for “further comment,” this doubtless transpiring right after running fact checks on all guests in last Tuesday’s Coast to Coast AM show.

Finally, we have Snopes, which riffs off the USA Today report although to its credit it omits the Facebook users’ names. ‘Nuff said.

The whole artificial conundrum cauldron serves as a perfect reminder of why it is well nigh impossible to trust the media in any fashion. In its eagerness to preach The Gospel According to St. Fauci, and please ignore how he can’t say the same thing twice, it resorts to dragging out and dragging anyone who dares say he said something he didn’t say. Even when the first person mentioned clearly stated he never said what she is accused of saying he said. Confusing? Yes. But, since when did logic mean anything more than truth-telling doesn’t … er, does to the media?