zlacker

I think the media successfully conflated four separate questions:

a) Did it form in nature or in a lab?

b) Did it become more communicable via nature or via the lab?

c) Did it make it to humans through nature (or wet market) or via the lab?

d) If it came from the lab was it on purpose or an accident?

as simply "OMG IT CAME FROM A LAB" and then claimed it's all a conspiracy theory.

The media as a whole shot themselves in the foot on this one and we'll all be worse off for it.

>>caseys+(OP)
> The media as a whole shot themselves in the foot on this one

I don't have any evidence of this, but I don't think it was as accidental as shooting yourself in the foot. Media people know what they're doing.

>>caseys+(OP)
It's less "shot themselves in the foot" and more "broke our legs". Mass media's entire function has been reduced to hobbling public discourse.

>>caseys+(OP)
The article refers to two letters from leading researchers arguing against the lab escape hypothesis, one published in a Nature journal. It’s not like the media were spinning this story out of whole cloth. The whole thing was unfortunately hyper politicized from the start.

>>caseys+(OP)
It's really interesting to see this shift in sentiment that HN users have towards the media and journalism. A couple of years ago this comment wouldn't have made it to the top of the page, and it may have even been grayed out.

This isn't something I'm celebrating, though. It's not a sign of a successful state when everyone is losing confidence in the press.

>>caseys+(OP)
I also think 'wet market' is still a conflation here - the first or earliest location that a cluster of the virus was identified, and the site of a significant evolutionary event, are not and were never likely to be the same.

We only are led to think that because the media repeated it so often.

Human-to-human transmission started (almost certainly) with one human, not one animal transmitting to multiple humans.

>>ravens+kb
It would serve us well to distinguish between different types of media critiques.

One the one hand, there's the critique that media institutions are becoming more commercialized, dumbed-down, and turned in to infotainment, where serious discussion and inquiry is thrown out the window in favor of shouting matches and sensationalism.

There's another critique that media is in service or left-wing, right-wing, capitalist, or corporate special interests and parrots the party line.

Yet another critique is that the media doesn't give marginalized voices enough air time.

So when you say "everyone is losing confidence in the press" that may be true in general, but different people are doing so for very different reasons.

The grandparent comment seems to be a critique of the third category, where they seem to want the mainstream media to give more air time to conspiracy theories in direct contravention to the consensus of the scientific community: which is that SARS-CoV-2 came from nature, not from a lab.

>>pmoria+re
> The grandparent comment seems to be a critique of the third category, where they seem to want the mainstream media to give more air time to conspiracy theories in direct contravention to the consensus of the scientific community: which is that SARS-CoV-2 came from nature, not from a lab.

My actual criticism was closer to your first category: "where serious discussion and inquiry is thrown out the window in favor of shouting matches and sensationalism"

But thank you for demonstrating my point by re-collapsing all four questions into one.

>>pmoria+re
That comment might as well seem to be a camel, but what it is an indictment of the exact same conflation that you conclude with. The fact that you are correctly able to make equivalent distinctions (more or less) in the paragraphs preceding that conclusion reeks of bad faith.

>>caseys+Fh
What's more sensationalistic: that SARS-CoV-2 had a natural origin or that it was lab made?

Sensationlism is squarely on the side of the conspiracy theores.

>>caseys+(OP)
> The media as a whole shot themselves in the foot on this one and we'll all be worse off for it.

Science reporters don't generally understand science, and nuanced takes don't generate clicks. The "media" is the absolute worst place for this discussion to take place.

>>pmoria+dk
I noted four separate questions. You incorrectly assumed my position on the first and are now arguing with an opponent you imagined into existence.

Read past the "a)" because those are way more important and may be discoverable.

>>pmoria+dk
There is no such thing as "conspiracy theories". "Conspiracy theory" is itself a loaded term used equate any independent research critical of mainstream consensus with the ravings of lunatics. A theory can be:

(1) either confirmed, debunked or unproven;

(2) either originating from an authoritative source, originating from a non-authoritative source, or of unknown origin;

(3) either promoted, downplayed, or ignored by any particular media outlet.

These are, again, three orthogonal axes that you are implicitly, and stubbornly, conflating.

Anyone sensible is not even asking themselves if "conspiracy theories" are true. They're asking themselves where the hell they come from, why are they so contagious, what prevents societies from effectively containing them, and what are the long-term effects on our societies' health.

Or maybe anyone sensible is looking to profit from the confusion, and I'm a raving lunatic... Have you considered becoming one yourself?

>>pmoria+dk
Depends on your audience. There are people who love ridicule of conspiracy theories, even if they are completely closed off to any conspiracy theory being real.

>>caseys+(OP)
The media can be expected to fuck up a science story, even a high profile one, because they do that as a matter of course, even for simple, basic technical stuff that would be obvious to a first year college student with the relevant major.

The true problem is those professional scientists who jumped on the "lol conspiratard" bandwagon and probably ended up carrying water for the CCP, albeit unwittingly. I'm talking about the government who cried "racism" when other countries started closing their borders to China — the first one to do that was of course Taiwan AKA Republic of China, who are by that token racist against Chinese people, I guess.