I think we all know where it really came from

Nope. Elaborate.

Hmm. Seems self evident to me. :iono:

Hmm. Not sure what else to say. :iono:

We've been making statements, censoring people and putting faith in the "facts" for over a year. New "facts" emerge and we try to rationalize them away to protect our beliefs

Cool.

Okay but the truth is that yes partisans censor what they don't like to hear (on both sides of the issue...you think [unnamed outlet] would ever report any information suggesting it wasn't a nefarious Chinese plot?), but also that there have been no new facts.

The "new report" is a rehash of what the previous administration released on January 17th. They are gaslighting you by saying it is "new". They have been gaslighting for a long time, on almost every single story about this virus. Almost every single story is blatantly misleading. The Associated Press printed stories openly contradicting themselves:
https://apnews.com/article/china-hea...377ae0c2ac0eed
https://apnews.com/article/virus-out...acd6012d82c2f9

There is no such thing as "objective news", there is no such thing as "trusted sources", and when you see "evidence" or "breaking news" you have to go in with maximum suspicion. Life is actually pretty pleasant when you fully embrace this and stop caring about each little insignificant story they want you to think is significant.

I'm on board with you until you get to this point. I know you are not claiming there are no "objective facts," just few to no objective sources of information. That said, I suspect there are a number of news sources whose goal is not to gaslight the public but try to inform them. To be sure, they have ideological biases and, in today's U.S., most to all of them are on one side or the other of the cultural chasm. But, I have problems with invocation of false equivalence. Some news sources still attempt to ground their stories in the "facts" to the extent possible. Some, do not.

However, even the honest (mas or menos) ones face a bewildering array of contradictory information. And they have a consumer base that is hungry for any scrap of information that will help them make sense of the situation. So, what they publish are those scraps. Unfortunately, just as film scraps from the cutting room floor often offer contradictory ideas of what a film is about, the scraps of information often appear to point in multiple directions.

it's reasonable to ask then, why put out anything at all? One answer is the current dis/mis information industry. I suspect some "more reputable" news organizations feel they have to put something out if only to counteract the effluent discharge.

The thing everyone needs to remember right now is - we just don't know.

The current administration has announced that it will be pursuing additional intelligence gathering to try to chase down the "true" source of the virus. I am skeptical, not necessarily of their honesty, but due to the Sisyphean nature of the task and the fact that a significant portion of the American electorate is is no mood to be told the "truth."

I agree that there are more honest outlets and less honest ones. People usually bring up a certain "bias chart" (which doesn't really mean anything, because a media outlet is not a homogeneous single entity and can have differing views on the same topic and differing biases on different topics).

That said, you still have to read them very literally (e.g. "[so and so] claims X" != "X is true"), and even so they can be wrong, which is why I bring up the example of the Associated Press, they are usually considered "very factual" but they "lie" too, whether it's knowingly or just through confusion and/or being fed wrong sources. I will say that this past year I've been pretty pleased to see Reuters trying to cover all sides and stay consistent, and to AP's credit, I can't remember AP doing malicious mistranslation or wildly out-of-context quoting (unfortunately common features in reporting on foreign events).

Something I've seen come up from time to time is someone writing a piece or something where they say "if this isn't true, why has [insert news outlet here], which is known to be reputable and careful about its sources, saying the opposite?", which is an insane but common fallacy of appeal to authority.

If something is important, an honest effort to refute it should be made before belief, which is not something most people know how to do or can even psychologically handle. It's a tragedy of human nature I suppose.

Why do you always have to use words I need to google :paddle:

Here are some "facts" that have changed over the last 12 months, some altered purely for manipulation imo

Masks dont work
Everyone needs a mask
If you're vaccinated wear two, those nasty variants you know....
We need more people vaccinated, if you're immunized daddy says no need for masks
No gain of function research it came from a dirty wet market
Oops we do gain of function research in north Carolina but not wuhan
Oops there was gof research in wuhan but only with well respected scientists
Goddamit we should investigate that lab!

Cant wait for the next..

I think your sources of information have confused you. In the last twelve months the mask guidance coming out of official channels (ignoring POTUS Twitter feed) has been pretty consistent. Once there was enough opportunity for all those in high risk groups to be fully vaccinated, it was deemed appropriate that vaccinated individuals did not have to wear masks.

I have not looked much into what research was done where, because there really isn't anything for me, or any of us really, to do about it other than wait for a consensus to be formed there. It turns out that collecting, distributing, and processing information takes time. I recommend not getting wound up about every little piece of information that is reported.

This! Also doesn't help the various talking heads put words in the mouths of others or have the video clips shown in such ways it fits their narratives.

i haven't heard the majority of that. certainly seems my lack of interaction with facebook and tv news personalities has paid out in dividends...