bird flu from asia?

[Rog]

Originally Posted by Sean

Reports that "swine flu could wipe out tens of millions of people" (actual CNN quote) when only a few people were actually sick is irresponsible overkill to an incredible degree.

my sentiments exactly mate!. half the people in the uk who have contracted this deadly virus are out of hospital and saying it was like a heavy cold. A bit of a warning would have been enough instead of the massive fuckin media overkill we are presently experiencing.
maybe in a few years when we really do have something serious happening then everyone will be like 'yeah yeah....we've heard it all before' and we'll all die.....'the media who cried wolf'?

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Rog

my sentiments exactly mate!. half the people in the uk who have contracted this deadly virus are out of hospital and saying it was like a heavy cold. A bit of a warning would have been enough instead of the massive fuckin media overkill we are presently experiencing.
maybe in a few years when we really do have something serious happening then everyone will be like 'yeah yeah....we've heard it all before' and we'll all die.....'the media who cried wolf'?

ask anyone in toronto how they feel about the media's handling of SARS.

Cacaophony, the argument, it seems to me, boils down to whether or not you can say the media acted responsibly *EVEN IF* the worst case scenario was realized. Clearly the answer is no. Even if this thing turned into spanish flu, the media was not informative, it was stoking anxiety. To prove that point, someone can simply sit through the days of american network television coverage and count how many minutes were spent covering actual facts and information and how many minutes were spent covering looped, fetishized, stories of anxiety. Would I be making an up-at-night assumption if I claimed to know how that experiment would turn out?

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

... Would I be making an up-at-night assumption if I claimed to know how that experiment would turn out?

You could save yourself a lot of time by just looking @ Teremiflu(or whatever the names of them are) & it's competitor's stock values. Maybe.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Rog

my sentiments exactly mate!. half the people in the uk who have contracted this deadly virus are out of hospital and saying it was like a heavy cold. A bit of a warning would have been enough instead of the massive fuckin media overkill we are presently experiencing.
maybe in a few years when we really do have something serious happening then everyone will be like 'yeah yeah....we've heard it all before' and we'll all die.....'the media who cried wolf'?

in the first week of discovery there was no way to know whether this would be a supervirus or a bad cold. as i already described, the mode and speed of transmission was justifiably alarming to health professionals.

i guess what i dislike is using "cry wolf" to describe this situation. in the original fable the boy DELIBERATELY cried wolf in order to stir up a frenzy. thus teaching his community that he was a deliberate liar.

in the case of emergency alerts, like virus outbreaks or potentially catastrophic weather, no one is deliberately lying in order to stir up chaos. officials justifiably raise the alert because these things aren't perfectly predictable. we lack the ability to tell the future with precision so yes, sometimes the warning call will go out and nothing bad will manifest.

that doesn't make the warning system unjustified. it's not crying wolf.

crying wolf was saying "there's a link between iraq and 9/11. let's go get 'em!" warning the public about a potential health hazard is not.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

Cacaophony, the argument, it seems to me, boils down to whether or not you can say the media acted responsibly *EVEN IF* the worst case scenario was realized. Clearly the answer is no. Even if this thing turned into spanish flu, the media was not informative, it was stoking anxiety. To prove that point, someone can simply sit through the days of american network television coverage and count how many minutes were spent covering actual facts and information and how many minutes were spent covering looped, fetishized, stories of anxiety. Would I be making an up-at-night assumption if I claimed to know how that experiment would turn out?

i guess i see it from a different perspective. most of the "media" you're describing is entertainment media. i don't expect much from them. i see CNN sending sanjay gupta to mexico so he can mingle unmasked (*gasp*) with the infected and i see entertainment. not news.

i think you have to be choosy with your news sources. and frankly, the public consumes the coverage it wants regardless of the truth of the situation. we at webmd have tried to put this into perspective from the beginning by pointing out that the "regular" flu kills 36,000 people every year. pneumonia kills upwards of 60,000, and those figures are for the US alone. and while we've had incredible traffic, totally breaking all records since the site's launch, people consume what they want to consume. if they want to consume the "symptoms" article more than they want to consume the "why you shouldn't worry" article, that's a self-directed preference.

i'm not arguing that the media is a responsible outlet for information. i'm saying the public's desire for the excitement of doom drives a lot of the hysterical coverage.

look, i manage the cancer content for the site. i'm responsible for knowing the user base, knowing the conditions, and providing responsible information that people will consume. and i will tell you with absolutely no exaggeration that the most responsible perspective piece will never EVER hold a candle to the fearful content in terms of audience consumption. penile cancer is one of the rarest cancers on earth but people consume the "symptoms" content in quantities that put it on par with a REAL public health issue like diabetes.

i'm also not arguing that the media should cover the worst just because we have a natural human tendency to dwell on the worst. i'm just saying there's a call-and-response relationship between the audience and media outlets. when people stop consuming it, media moves on to the next drama.

i just think it's far too easy to point at media and cry, "YOU'RE THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR PROBLEMS!" it's easier than admitting that we're the source of our problems, too.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

i just think it's far too easy to point at media and cry, "YOU'RE THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR PROBLEMS!" it's easier than admitting that we're the source of our problems, too.

I'm annoyed with the media - such as CNN - because they made themselves unwatchable to me, and misinformed millions of people thereby causing damage to multiple industries and lives. That's a legitimae gripe. Can't exactly say I was feeding the problem since I stopped watching once I heard them report the "tens of millions" hysteria, but I feel justified in pointing out how opportunistic and destructive their "reporting" was. I don't argue a single point you've made about the organizations that were putting out legitimate updates. I have no problem with them. But let's face it, a lot of people are out there living their lives, watching the television news after dinner as they've always done - like many of our parents - to get their basic updates on what's going on in the world. It's a problem how irresponsible those outlets have become. They're not the source of all our problems by a long shot, but they're definitely one of them, and calling that out shouldn't be off limits.

[Strangelet]

Cacophony, what's funny is as soon as I got the part where you mention penis cancer I immediately wanted to look it up. But that just proves how irrational we are. I also agree with all of your good points with respect to this sad truth.

It really is a difference of perspective because, while I do agree with everything you said, I don't think it answers the problem some of us see from our perspective.

The fact that its so easy to pander to people doesn't make it excusable. Its hard to say I have burr up my ass about the media when I have almost religious worship for journalists who actually don't pander, but inform, and approach their audience on the highest levels. This is not only heroic in bravery but heroic in the benefits it brings to the health of our culture.

But like Sean and others, I feel justified in pointing out the systemic corruption in our news. You can't excuse network tv news because "everybody knows" they are entertainment. They call themselves news. People watch them for news. And they get back nothing but phobia circle jerks with "experts" and mantras of the most improbable but scary possible outcomes of any situation, looped by anechdotal pieces of runs on face masks and hand sanitizers. 24 hours a day. Just barely interspersed with coverage of a WHO press conference or an actual "development"

The intent is clearly to manipulate perspective of the truth for personal gain. And that's how you can call it corruption.

[Deckard]

What Strangelet said.

But also to add - the fact that we're not surprised to see the news* behaving this way does not mean it's pointless calling them on it or ridiculing them for it.

Afaic, more of that please.

(*rightly or wrongly, CNN, NBC, Sky, the Times, etc are perceived by the majority of people as news, not entertainment)

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by Deckard

*


(*rightly or wrongly, CNN, NBC, Sky, the Times, etc are perceived by the majority of people as news, not entertainment)

Yeah, in a recent interview with one of our troops serving in the Middle East, when asked a question referring to The Washington Post*, smart boy said something along the line of , "BOOOO!, I read REAL tabloids."


* Or WA Times or Journal or something.

[Rog]

Originally Posted by cacophony

in the first week of discovery there was no way to know whether this would be a supervirus or a bad cold. as i already described, the mode and speed of transmission was justifiably alarming to health professionals.

i guess what i dislike is using "cry wolf" to describe this situation. in the original fable the boy DELIBERATELY cried wolf in order to stir up a frenzy. thus teaching his community that he was a deliberate liar.

.

i agree with the first paragraph.....health professionals being the operative words.

but the media have deliberately stirred up an unwarranted frenzy and even if they aint guilty of lying then they are guilty of deliberately distorting the situation.