Parts of the media listened to a bunch of people who all had good reason to dismiss theories that would point to them as in some way connected to research they knew was dangerous and this assessment was used for widespread censorship of contrary opinions.
The media is supposed to be a bit more skeptical of their sources than that. At this point I follow rules that look a lot like these:
https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-IntelAnalysis.pdf