 ⁛ News  Misled McNeil: Nobody, but nobody, wants to even think about, much less cover, the chaos of the early COVID period. But to revisit that horrorshow: An extraordinary set of Slack messages was accidentally released by a congressional committee last summer. They reveal top evolutionary virologists telling one another that they find the “lab leak” theory of the coronavirus’s genesis plausible, but that, for reasons of politics — they didn’t want to give ammunition to people they saw as alarmist about some virus research — they should steer journalists away from it. The messages also include specific discussion about how to manage then-New York Times public health reporter Donald McNeil. McNeil, with those scientists’ encouragement, became an early skeptic of the lab leak theory, before concluding it was in fact a possible explanation of COVID’s origin. He addresses the Slacks in his new book, The Wisdom of Plagues, writing that the scientists “clearly misled me early on.” McNeil is “disappointed, both in them and in myself, that I was so easily taken in.” But he muses on the challenge: “It’s one thing to be lied to by a politician and fail to check it out. But on viral evolution, to whom do you go for a second opinion? … If Albert Einstein assured you that nuclear fission is harmless, whom would you trust to quote saying, ‘Einstein’s dead wrong?’” Now the substantive debate is a “stalemate,” he writes, with both sides “hurling mud,” and editors demanding answers “so they can assign analyses of which political candidates benefit.” (Correction: An earlier version of this item misidentified the scientific field of the evolutionary virologists.)  Melber’s numbers: MSNBC has quietly reached enormous numbers on YouTube, in no small part due to the reach of The Beat with Ari Melber, which has also built a strong audience in the often-cursed 6 p.m. slot. On YouTube, The Beat just crossed 1.5 billion views, and averages more than 500,000 views a clip — good engagement by any measure of YouTube success. His hits include normal MSNBC fodder like anti-Putin and anti-Trump reporting, for instance, as well as interviews with artists including 50 Cent and Erykah Badu. (Melber sometimes mixes the two threads, once asking a former Russian foreign minister, “Was it not Bakunin who said, ‘Don’t get high on your own supply’?”) YouTube remains an afterthought for U.S. cable and broadcast networks because the revenue there is still dwarfed by what comes in from affiliate fees and TV advertising. But as viewers continue to drift away from cable, and as YouTube consolidates its hold on longform news video, there’s a larger question about whether, and when, the draw of the creator economy will start pulling big names out of TV altogether. The audience, as Piers Morgan noted recently when he stopped broadcasting on the doomed British TalkTV, is there. What remains to be seen is whether TV networks — with their juggernaut ad sales machines, in particular — will be able to keep top talent from going independent, or whether breakout figures like Megyn Kelly, who’ve built their own business on YouTube, are the wave of the future. Melber, for his part, says he won’t rest on his laurels. “We’re definitely thrilled to find a loyal audience on both TV and YouTube who values our reporting, culture pieces and in-depth interviews,” Melber said in an email. “But rapper Lil Baby did tell me he doesn’t even display platinum plaques, because they limit you to past hits when there’s work left to do.” Welcome back: The veteran media reporter Hadas Gold, who has most recently been on assignment covering the Gaza war from Jerusalem for CNN, is back to covering the glorious media beat as a correspondent, a CNN spokesperson told Semafor exclusively. “Hadas will be working with Jon Passantino, Oliver Darcy and Liam Reilly on CNN’s Media team,” they said of the announcement, planned for Monday. Long road for NewsNation: The would-be fourth big cable news channel, launched amid the collapse of linear television, is barely registering with viewers. To wit: They’ve launched a Sunday political talk show, a la Meet the Press, hosted by ousted Fox hand Chris Stirewalt. Last Sunday, Stirewalt tweeted that due to a technical “hiccup,” the show would not air. Did you notice?  Just asking questions: Local television powerhouse Sinclair Broadcasting Group is running a survey suggesting that there are proposals to allow immigrants living in the country illegally to vote. A tipster pointed Semafor to one of Sinclair’s television stations in Rhode Island, WJAR, which is currently running a bizarre 30-day viewer “poll” on their website, asking: “Do you believe illegal immigrants should vote in US elections?” Energy bars: Energy reporters covering CERAWeek in Houston saw the ExxonMobil and Chevron bicker over Guyana and do their best to charm the press the old-fashioned way. Journalists who made their way past protesters found a Chevron party in the dark upstairs room of a music venue, with plentiful snacks and an open bar of wine and beer. One reporter who emailed us said he thought Exxon won the week Wednesday with free hard liquor and branded beer koozies. On ‘proper’ newsgathering: The All-China Journalists Association is complaining publicly about reporters being manhandled at the scene of an explosion, a point of view amplified by an — exceedingly careful and polite — editorial in the South China Morning Post, which concludes: “We trust mainland China authorities will recognise the legitimate rights of all journalists covering news on the mainland, including those from Hong Kong, as long as they are conducting proper news gathering in a professional way.” ⁜ TechClout economics: The indispensable Garbage Day spots a new trend of adult performers making family-friendly(-ish) content for TikTok and other major social platforms while involving random strangers in their pranks. Underlying it is a pervasive view that attention is equivalent to value. When the subject of one “skit” involving sexual harassment at a Target objects to his inclusion in a video, the content creator responds: “He got five million views. He is pissed about nothing. STFU take the free clout and get you some $$$.” ✦ MarketingPricey rental: MediaLink is charging companies $850,000 for a prime meeting space on the beach at Cannes, Adweek scoops. No word on whether co-founder Michael Kassan’s departure will produce discounts. Meanwhile, The Ankler has the latest on the legal mudslinging between Kassan and UTA, revealing that the former MediaLink head was granted a pandemic relief loan in 2020 for over $40,000, despite his having sold his company for $69 million in cash just a few years earlier. ☊ AudioLooking back: Andy Mills thought the Canadian media show Canadaland was unfair to him when he became the Times’s scapegoat for some mixture of workplace politics and the Caliphate mess. So when Canadaland host Jesse Brown himself became the subject of (Gaza-related) online controversy, Mills emailed him. Their conversation is an unusual debate about what journalists do. Podcast digression of the week: Andrew Sullivan’s dog got into his weed and had a vivid dream. Good timing for us! Ezra Klein says it’s a “great time to start a media organization” amid a thoughtful discussion of this media moment with PJ Vogt on Search Engine. ⁋ PublishingWhat the Telegraph is worth: The worse the media business gets, the larger share of a publisher’s value is its political power, Michael Wolff notes in his astute essay on Jeff Zucker’s Telegraph debacle: “Zucker wasn’t just trying to buy British media properties — he was, though he might not have been entirely aware of the breadth of his grab, trying to buy part of the country’s political system.” ✰ Hollywood Chapek speaks: The former Disney CEO makes a surprise reappearance in CNBC reporter Alex Sherman’s smart and watchable documentary about the future of ESPN. Trust in Zaz: Puck’s Bill Cohan tries his hand at shifting the conventional wisdom that Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav is in huge trouble. What’s really going on, he writes, is a company trying to pay down its debt so that it can start making bold moves again. The subtext of the piece, though, is worth taking in: the universal understanding that WBD and its leader are flailing. Filming in Ghana: “There’s a stigma attached to creative industries as not being serious business,” Idris Elba told my colleague Alexis Akwagyiram. Elba, who is building a film studio in Ghana, is hoping to prove that wrong. | 
