It's the media hysteria that's insane - the TV news here in NZ led with a whole bunch of whizz-bang statistics, about numbers of exposed people, who had been where, when they had been there - flight numbers, the number of people being tracked down by health and immigration, the fact that the Ministry of Health was operating at CODE YELLOW- you know the level where "something, somewhere might be being done by someone, and we need to maybe do something about that potentially explosive somewhat" - to paraphrase American Dad - and OMG - there's more planes landing from LAX that have people who may have been somewhere near Mexico - and we cut now to 4 different reporters doing live crosses from outside a. a school, b. the airport, c. a hospital, d. an imposing looking structure - because that sort of conduct is PROFESSIONAL REPORTING -AND THE PUBLIC HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW! RIGHT NOW!! ALL THE TIME!!
WHERE'S THE GRAPHICS GUY WITH THE SCROLLING UPDATE - OF EVERYTHING I'VE JUST SAID!!
And I want the graphics exploding across the screen, in a fireball - you know, like the guys at FOX do theirs - because FFS!! That's real mofo news.
Oh. and 5 minutes into the bulletin - we point out, very briefly and quietly, and the graphic is in the smallest font we can get away with - because it might make us a look a little silly if people actually notice the small fact that....
Not one single person has been diagnosed with swine flu.
It's not just the TV though - here's a headline from the business section of the NZ Herald.
Currency: Swine flu forces dollar lower
Which is outstanding - except that when you read down to the 5th paragraph - you get this - the actual money quote.
Quote:
BNZ Capital currency strategist Danica Hampton said swine flu was an issue at the margins in the foreign exchange market.
"People know about it. People are talking about it but it is not really the big driver of the currency.
"What we have seen today is a reversal of the squeeze we saw on Friday night," she said.
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you know- the squeeze that happened before the swine flu news broke.