We have seen first hand how mainstream and government working together to censor truth and spread lies. Media is usually political and for this reason I would prefer to take information through organizations that are overtly political with very apparent biases. We can account for the biases based on their agendas. Although there is a significant level of conflict regarding what is real and true in during the current events and recent history, the past is regarded as more or less settled and well understood. When I read about the past, I was amazed by the amount of detail historians had figured out and presented as if they were witnesses to these events.
It is only later that I realized that these were not some magically capable people who have come to know all these events. These were regular people who found few pieces of evidence and built a story around it. What historians have really been are storytellers with agendas. The way COVID-19 coverage was done is not that different from how ancient history was covered.
What can make a difference today is that we have new tools to both study the past and spread the research to rest of the world. I shared some extremely insightful revelations in a conversation with @builderofcastles and I decided that they were too good to be buried as a comment.
