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CNN just released their story about the new US Energy Department report stating with ‘low confidence’ that COVID likely came from a lab in China.
I’m not going to speculate as to why the US is all of a sudden switching the narrative towards the most likely reality after having denied it for so long, but geopolitical relations with China probably have a lot to do with it right now.
The clip below is one minute long and will set important context for the rest of this piece. Please check it out.
Bottom line, the CNN story back in 2020 sounded very different than CNN in 2023.
The issue is not so much that CNN is updating their position to be more accurate, it’s why they are updating their reporting, as well as the approach that was taken in 2020.
Back in 2020, when there was no way to provide certainty around this story, yet CNN created a segment that focused on how certain it was that COVID could not have come from a lab.
They used words like a “wave of misinformation,” “conspiracy theories,” and “jeopardizing truth” in their segment to create a public perception that this story was not true and that the experts support that.
But how could CNN have known this? Did they balance their inquiry when they sought to answer these questions?
What CNN left out of their report is that the “open letter written by scientists in the Lancet” was done so in part by a powerful man, Peter Daszak, who directly benefited from diverting discussion around the lab leak theory as he would be implicated as partly responsible.
Normally, good journalism would expose this conflict of interest, but CNN chose to just go along with the narrative. No checking, no rigor, and no journalism.
In the same fashion, CNN is simply going along with the narrative again, reporting on the US Energy Department’s ‘new revelation’ as if this theory wasn’t reasonable years ago. In both instances, CNN’s audience remains misled about the whole story, and the perception that ‘the government always has it right’ is maintained.
‘Fact Checkers’ Wrong Yet Again
We got a fact check for reporting on the lab leak theory back in September of 2020.
I reported on the claim from Dr. Li Meng Yan that she had evidence COVID was manmade, and that she would publish it.
We were told by fact checkers this story was false, and the idea that COVID was made in a lab was a baseless conspiracy theory.
They told us,
"The consensus of the scientific community and international public health organizations is that the coronavirus emerged from bats and later jumped to humans."
So that’s it. Something novel, brand new apparently, and within months they know for certain it originated in a wet market, and the lab origins discussion was off the table. No need for further discussion, no need for expert opinions. We already know.
For a culture so hell bent on scientific values, how does uncheckable certainty line up with those values?
My article did not claim lab origins to be true. It simply stated there was more to the conversation and that we should look out for emerging evidence.
But no, that is false apparently.
The truth is, the idea that COVID came from a wet market in China had about the same level of evidence to support it as did the lab origins theory. The only difference was, one was accepted in mainstream culture and the other wasn’t.
We explained to fact checkers that we were merely reporting on an expert opinion. They shut us out, strong armed us, and told us we were wrong. We lost reach and revenue, and took an undeserved hit to our reputation yet again.
A year later, everyone in the mainstream retracted their stories ‘debunking the lab leak theory,’ and so did the fact checkers.
It was now taken seriously that COVID may have come from a lab. But the damage to companies like us was already done.
Why do so many stories only become true when governments decide they are true? Even after decades of lies and deceit, why do so many of us still side with the deceivers? It’s as if we are in an abusive relationship with government, and can’t escape it.
Narrative Control
This same type of misleading action is what I was pointing out in my recent piece called How We Are Being Misled.
It points to the fact that journalists at “respected outlets” are, by nature of the publication, limiting their inquiry into various subjects in order to stay attuned with mainstream acceptance.
They aren’t truth seeking, they are acceptance seeking. And all of this is happening under the guise of “good journalism, rigor, and real science.”
In my previous article I spoke about the subject of mask mandates and COVID, and how mainstream journalists will spend hours upon hours trying to show that masks work. Yet they refuse to even acknowledge the potential downsides to long term mask usage, which is a subject that has been extensively researched. And guess what, there is plenty of evidence long term usage can bring negative side effects.
So instead of looking holistically at the mask debate, they narrow their focus to “is there even a tiny infanticidal chance they work? If so, we should use them!” Thus leaving their audience misinformed on the whole picture.
A Wake Up Call
Many people began questioning mainstream narratives during COVID and may not realize that it was long before COVID that this type of denial and fact checking behavior was going on.
Academic experts affected by COVID censorship today are up in arms at the treatment they have gone through, fighting for all they have lost. But outlets like us have been going through this for over a decade - very few listened when we spoke about what was going on back then.
Our publication has been the target of fact checkers for a long time, and their actions have taken the business we built from us via censorship, demonetization, and reputation destruction. From a strong multi-million dollar operation, to one that barely makes enough to get by.
This is the power of deception. The power of putting out ‘certain’ information when there is no certainty. When mainstream media chooses to listen to and believe government, even when they are obviously wrong, we leave the public ill-informed. We also destroy the health of independent media outlets that paved the way for people to eventually wake up to these truths.
The past is the past, we cannot undo what has happened to us. But we can take peace in knowing the world is waking up to what is truly going on with narrative control and low quality journalism.
Is It Just The Mainstream?
If I’m being honest with how I feel, many outlets in alternative/independent media elicit the same mis-steps of mainstream journalism.
Many are finding success today by playing the same game the mainstream plays: capturing their audience through a narrative, not the truth.
This means that truth isn’t the main goal, even though it is often touted as such. Instead, the goal is to feed audiences what they want to hear, what they will approve of, and what will deeply support the narrative that ‘X’ outlet is taking out the ‘bad guys.’
This, over time, will have its consequences too. In fact, I already observe them in the plenty. Critical thinking in indie or alt media can often be as poor, or worse, than in mainstream media.
But again, this is a process that is exposing the importance of slowing down, thinking more carefully, and developing our ability to make sense. (A process deeply improved through embodiment practice)
I feel that the way forward is not to alienate people who don't yet question mainstream media, but to increase their awareness and consciousness around what mechanisms media outlets are using to mislead their audiences.
Arm the public with these tools, and by nature these outlets will have to evolve or die. This practice is something we are committed to with our work.
I want to thank all of you who support our work here at The Pulse & Collective Evolution. We truly believe in news and media that goes where the evidence leads, without sensationalistic distraction, that has the courage to expand our mind and consciousness.
If you are not yet a paid subscriber here on Substack, please consider supporting our work.
Much love.
Call me skeptical (because I very much am for various reasons) but the DoE? How is this related to what that agency does? Under what circumstance would they even be involved?
The most likely scenario is that there was no distinct disease called Covid-19 with very specific symptoms caused by a novel coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2. There was absolutely no justification to believe that a pneumonia with the 2 most common symptoms (cough & fever) constituted a new disease. The 1st cases in China actually list cough and fever as the only 2 symptoms!! Loss of taste & smell was never a symptom in China and was added months later in the US. So it’s the same disease but the symptoms are completely different in China & the US? It doesn’t work like that and let’s not forget that the flu “disappeared”. Why would a novel lab leaked coronavirus cause the flu to disappear?? What’s more likely: There is a new disease and the flu disappeared or could they simply be calling the flu and every other illness “COVID” ?? The latter.