Politically Correct Vox Edits ‘China’ Out of Coronavirus Explainer Title

• Vox recently edited the word “China” out of a coronavirus explainer video on YouTube. Is this political correctness gone too far?
• Or deceptive editing by the center left news and opinion site in the wake of bad faith criticisms of Donald Trump retweeting the words “Wuhan Virus?”
• If so, it sure does make Twitter’s decision not to add an edit button — despite overwhelming user demand– quite understandable.

Sometime over the weekend, or possibly early Monday, Vox edited the word “China” out of its coronavirus explainer video on YouTube.

You can tell, because as recently as Saturday afternoon an Indian Twitter user tweeted out a link to an article featuring the video and referenced the original title:

Why New Diseases Keep Appearing In China

Why new diseases keep appearing in China? Holy mustache of Martin Luther King, did a white supremacist write that title? A MAGA-hat wearing, immigrant-bashing, xenophobic, Always Trumper, total nationalist wrote that for sure right?

That’s the impression you’d get from the massive backlash against Donald Trump and other Republicans on anti-Trump Twitter for using the term “Wuhan Virus” to describe the coronavirus that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Was Vox’s Original Title “Astoundingly Gross?”

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes said it was “astoundingly gross” to call it the Wuhan virus:

But in fact, that was Vox’s own title for a very informative coronavirus explainer uploaded to YouTube on Mar. 6 — just two days before Chris Hayes launched the partisan attack on all the alleged jingoists in the Trump camp.

Then after two weeks of progressive Twitter, joined by establishment media in attacking Donald Trump and Republicans for calling coronavirus “Wuhan Virus,” Vox quietly went back and edited the title of its video to:

How wildlife trade is linked to coronavirus

Wildlife trade where, Vox?

When they tried to trace its origin, they found a likely source. This food market in Wuhan. Out of the first 41 patients, 27 had been here. It wasn’t conclusive evidence, but Chinese officials quickly shut down the market.

Why’d they do that, Vox?

They had seen this happen before at a place just like this. In 2002 a coronavirus had emerged at a very similar market in Southern China. Now 18 years later, this coronavirus is in at least 71 countries and has already killed over 3,100 people. So what do these markets have to do with the coronavirus outbreak? And why is it happening in China?

Wow, sounds like a China virus to me.

Vox changed the YouTube video’s title, but they left the original in the article featuring it on their website.

Vox’s video explains how the Chinese government’s policies gave rise to the wildlife trade and “wet markets” there. It also explains how these policies catered to a small minority of wealthy elites who eat these delicacies.

After coronavirus rocked our world, America’s factory farms and antibiotics-pumped farm stock don’t seem quite so bad.

The Chinese Government Gave Us Coronavirus

The new title is very “politically correct” now. It’s correct in terms of a transparently political agenda since 2016 to brand Donald Trump as a racist. And it’s transparently political because Vox itself published a video titled “Why New Diseases Keep Appearing in China.”

Now it appears they’re trying to rewrite history to make it look like they never used that term so the Democrats’ criticism of Trump can make any sense. This is why Twitter needs to never add an edit button.

Let’s please keep it real. There’s no racism in pointing out the policy failures of the Chinese government. They have unleashed a coronavirus on the world not once but twice now. The second time they arrested a doctor for daring to even mention the coronavirus to other doctors in an online message.

As Wuhan was wracked by the disease he warned about, Chinese government officials forced journalists to retract reports of that very doctor’s death from COVID-19.

The Chinese Communist Party’s iron grip on information flow related to coronavirus is well documented in the press. This amid a fast-moving pandemic for which the rapid flow of accurate information to the public is paramount.

Coronavirus was a Chinese government policy failure from beginning to end. Yet the American press is twisting it into a Trump Administration failure, while calling his supporters racist to boot.

That’s why NPR/PBS NewsHour found half of Americans don’t trust the news media’s coronavirus coverage. And why Rasmussen Reports found independent voters rated the media’s coronavirus coverage even worse than Republicans did. Because Vox edits their video titles.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.