> We can't be so gullible that we think this wasn't deliberate right?

What do you mean by "this"? One thing I agree with is that we knew about this story for months. I've read about Jensen's affair with Alice Huang and her ties to the Chinese government at least five months ago.

The thing that triggered the current reporting was the new sourcing about U.S. intelligence findings that came out in late October. So mainstream news started reporting on it once they had sources they found trustworthy.

The confusing thing, though, is not that the story suddenly became big, but why it didn't become big much earlier.

Of course it’s deliberate. The timing is especially interesting and noted in your link.

Whenever I see these kinds of stories I think of this, written a century ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystallizing_Public_Opinion