While I've so far managed to refrain from weighing in on the world's most popular news item, a number of articles have caught my eye in the past few days and I feel compelled to vent. Sorry.
Firstly, while the panic that has ensued as a result of the various developments in the swineflu outbreak is regrettable and often largely unjustified, we shouldn't automatically resort to refusing to believe everything that the media tells us. While various scares have fizzled to nothing in the past, that doesn't lessen the impact of any potential future pandemic. There are well-meaning journalists out there who wish to report the facts and however much those facts may get dressed up in inflammatory rhetoric, they do ultimately get published. Fact is - the spread of a virus is going to cause some alarm. The announcement of the first case in Newcastle (the city in which I live) is a good example: the Chronicle's late afternoon headline was the thick black, capitalised legend 'SWINEFLU CASE ON TYNESIDE' which, honestly, couldn't be more straightforward and devoid of hyperbole if it tried. Sure, they could've downplayed it a little by not making it the lead story or something but truthfully, given the coverage it's received in the rest of the media, it's the only logical place for it. This Guardian article by Ben Goldacre elaborates further on the subject, emphasising that the simple fact at the heart of all of this is that we just don't know enough.
Second, yeah, the media has a lot to answer for in its oft-sensationalist treatment of the issue, particularly (predictably) the scare-mongerers at The Mail, Express and the red-tops. Simon Jenkins' Guardian article makes some good points on this issue. However, The Guardian itself is far from devoid of blame. Its minute-by-minute coverage, while perhaps begun with the best of intentions, only serves to reinforce the prominence of the issue in people's minds which will certainly not help those who are more prone to worry, producing a nation of hermits sitting at their computers pressing the 'refresh' button for the latest bleak conjecture... sorry, I mean 'update'. Still, at least it isn't as bad as this, this and this. The Mail article is eye-rollingly typical as it marries its capitalist, conservative politics to the issue of people being concerned that they might be seriously ill, a concern that will largely be generated as a result of the kind of hysterical panic that they have a substantial hand in generating. Tossers. The MSN News and London Paper articles, however, are symptomatic of this lunatic tendency for journalists to grab hold of whatever the most frightening potential statistic is, the absolute worst case scenario, and run it as a headline-grabbing news item when it is actually devoid of any real-time relevance whatsoever. It's the equivalent of running the headline 'ENTIRE HUMAN POPULATION COULD BE ANNIHILATED' for an article about an al-Qaeda attack on a shopping district in Pakistan. Yeah, sure, we could, if they had a bio-weapon and the means to distribute it or something, but really... should we be concerning ourselves with such a remote possibility? So far, the upward trend in new cases appears to be slowing in Mexico, the cases in other areas of the world have proved to be milder than those at the epicentre and all seem to have responded well to treatment, and at least John Crace is still okay (although maybe he wouldn't be if he went here). Obviously, any of this could change at the drop of a hat but for now, it hardly seems prudent to be shouting that '94,000 LONDONERS ARE GOING TO DIE!' does it, Evening Standard?
Third and final, there are a number of interesting after-effects of the pandemic and the mass hysteria surrounding it. Some thoroughly abhorrent folk want to use your panic to scam you out of money, though you really would have to be stupid to buy into any of it. MSNBC reminds us all of the dangers of racism and knee-jerk reaction in the ludicrous scramble to apportion blame for the pandemic. It's a good article this, including a few choice quotes from Michael Savage, the worst human being in the world. And last, but by no means least, NME briefly thought Pete Doherty might die of the virus which, of course, would've reduced their weekly publication to about 6 pages for the rest of its days. The article is so ludicrous it almost doesn't warrant discussion. The photograph of Pete and the victim is evidently rather old - a cursory glance reveals that - and anyway, the woman HAD BEEN TO MEXICO ON HER HONEYMOON where Doherty most certainly was not. So unless she met him in the couple of days she was back on UK soil before she acquired symptoms, the likelihood seems distinctly low. Mind, that didn't stop an 'unnamed source' (hah!) at femalefirst.co.uk from making the following insightful comment: "Friends are worried he may have the deadly illness. He has got himself clean of drugs, the last thing he needs is this." Actually, to be fair to NME, at least it acknowledges the unlikely nature of the whole thing in the article, which is more than can be said for Undercover's coverage. I'm not sure what's more distressing about this one: the fact that they entertain the notion of Doherty's possible swineflu infection or their description of the symptoms of the virus as 'looking pale, weak and delirious and having a runny nose'. Christ almighty, that's about 90% of the teenage population of the UK! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!
Now if only Charlie Brooker's Newswipe had gone on for one extra week, we could've had some really sensible coverage of the issue. Sigh.
Oh, and someone really needs to have a good word with Joe Biden. Deary me.
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