Why did swine flu fall off our radar when we realized that right now, it wasn’t the long awaited killer influenza after all? Well, look no further than the media. Instead of trying to report the facts and tempering its coverage with other newsworthy matters, it honed in on the outbreak and kept asking how bad it will be, how many will be infected, how many will die and whether we’re about to face the kind of pandemic the aftermath of which would at least equal that of the Spanish flu. Then, when the hype was impossible to sustain and people found out that swine flu really isn’t the new doomsday virus, the media just discarded the topic. The WHO’s declaration was a passing little newsbit, just a few seconds of the media’s time.
It’s this disparity between the initial coverage of the outbreak and what’s happening as the disease spreads which tells us something important about the kind of media we have. Instead of trying to educate or inform us when we really need cold, hard facts, our news channels are just trying to keep us glued to the TV with sensational tales and wild speculation based on what will bring in ratings rather than what people need to know.
via Greg Fish – World of Weird Things – Hey, where did swine flu go? – True/Slant.
