I’m not saying Todd had to karate-kick Fauci in the teeth and I agree that some of Fauci’s critics have been overheated. But given all the revelations swirling at present, imagine what an actual practicing journalist could have done with that interview. And what is state media if not media that protects agents of the state? There isn’t a government spokesman in existence who could have defended Fauci better than Todd did. At least ABC News’s Jonathan Karl admitted last week that reporters had previously neglected lab-leak evidence. The question now is why so many of them are still doing it. It’s true that America has an “adversarial press,” but the adversary these days isn’t so much lies or corruption or the powerful; it’s a perceived choir of conservative whackjobs who somehow keep on being proven right. Those of us who wince at the yellow and scream-o nature of some right-wing media should be nonetheless grateful it exists. Otherwise we might have to wait another 20 years for the truth to come out.