Congratulations, it's a pandemic!

At this point, I don't know which would be worse for my digestive system: watching media coverage of swine flu, or actually contracting the illness.

For those unconscious for the last 24 hours, the World Health Organization declared the swine flu (or H1N1, for the porcine-sensitive among us) to be a global pandemic. That means it is unstoppably spreading on every continent on Earth. There's nothing that can be done to contain it at this point.

Yet I doubt I'm alone when I say I've noticed a decided reservedness on the part of the dutiful media to report this troubling news. By way of experiment, check out popular news sites here, here and here. As of this posting, news of the swine flu announcement had crept below the fold, in deference to such impact-laden stories as the Letterman-Palin tiff and the possibility of the discovery of a planet in a galaxy we'll never see, and on par with a story of the military allegedly covering up fireballs in space.

Here's the first of my problems with all this: Pandemics are the types of things that change life for ordinary citizens. While not yet declared and currently expressly discouraged by the WHO, a pandemic can lead to travel restrictions and otherwise general encumbrances on mobility. Yet the dutiful media feels it is far more important to focus on a late-night comedian's obfuscation of the line between humor and politically-driven obscenity, which happens on one channel or another almost nightly.

Inasmuch as a criterion for solid news is its impact on the audience, a global flu pandemic far outweighs any of the stories mentioned above.

Which leads me to my second mini-sermon: Where is the outright hysteria we saw at the end of April and the beginning of May? When swine flu came into its own, the media couldn't outdo one another in pounding the panic button. Contrast the link above to the pandemic declaration story to this one, from late April. Do you see a difference in the words used to describe it? In the former, current story, the situation is described in terms such as "moderate." In the latter, this "baffling" illness is "frightening." ("Frightening?!" Really?) All such reporting was only hastened by our eloquent Vice President.

This is not just explainable by the passage of time, which allowed officials and media alike to re-evaluate their breathless hysteria. No, even in early May, worst-case projections for swine flu were so mild compared to normal, seasonal flu that there really was not much cause for alarm. "Moderate" applied then more than it does now.

So what's changed? The cynic in me says this: June is not a ratings month. May is. You see, a broadcast journalist worth his or her salt would never let perspective or facts get in the way of a chance to scare people into viewing during sweeps. One local station even ran a promo one May evening promising "overnight developments on the swine flu" in the next morning's broadcast.

Here's the point: Most news today is meant to provoke and evoke, not inform. An informative piece of news is the action the WHO took today regarding swine flu; an evocative piece of news is repeating what a 62-year-old comedian said about the sexuality of a 14-year-old girl. Which story won the news cycle battle today?

This dynamic is intensified during sweeps, when third party groups monitor the audience levels of broadcast stations, which in turn determine advertising rates for those stations. During this time, media types seemingly long for tragedy and upheaval so viewers have a reason to watch. (I have anecdotal evidence to back this up, but will not expound for brevity's sake.) Rest assured if the pandemic declaration had occurred just three weeks earlier, there would be a race to see which media outlet could so overstate the facts they become the story themselves.

So with that comes a prediction: We have not heard the last of swine flu. Unless there is another manufactured crisis, the media will be back in the business of fear-mongering on this issue come July. Why? July is the next ratings month, and even the media can't make Independence Day that scary (even with the perfunctory manequin-gets-its-hand-blown-off-by-a-firecracker story).

Before ingesting news, we would be wise to run the news we are exposed to through the filter of this question: Is what I am watching/reading/hearing on the news because it's important, or is it important because it's on the news? You may find that you'll avoid stomach problems of every kind.

You feel me?

AF

PS - If anyone can identify the pic at right, leave me a shout in the comments. You will make my day.