> Look, there are plenty of things that the media at large deservedly gets criticized for, but trying to pretend calling it the Wuhan coronavirus early on in the pandemic is the same thing as specifically emphasizing it as "the Chinese virus" 6 months later is just lying.
Your argument explicitly depends on the context and it depends on the criticism. The context wasn't "6 months later". It was days later. And the criticism was that it is racist. That it is xenophobic. That it is intended to humiliate and threaten people of Chinese descent.
A much more plausible explanation would have been that Trump and his insistence on calling it the "China virus" was an attempt to deflect any political blame for his administration's policies to try and contain the virus. A more plausible explanation was that Trump was being unnecessarily coarse. Or unnecessarily provocative. But no, he was accused of racism and xenophobia.
But even before the phrasing of "China virus" was a thing, Trump was criticized for shutting down travel from China as being racist. In hindsight it turns out to have been a very shrewd, life-saving move. But instead of giving credit where credit's due and recognizing the wisdom of shutting down travel, suddenly the phrasing was racist and xenophobic. The accusations were the same, but the goalposts were moved. That the same people (the media) lobbing the accusations of racism and xenophobia were only days earlier using the same language is clear hypocrisy.
Since racism is wrongthink and wrongthink doesn't merit being discredited, it's easy to see why it's thrown around so casually. It requires no justification and is a cheap way to generate outrage. And that makes it a useful political tool.
We now know that many of these same people (the media along with their cohorts in government and the socials) shut down reasonable discussion regarding the origins of the virus while simultaneously using accusations of racism and xenophobia. And that's potentially scandalous and should be deeply embarrassing.