The fear of flu

The growing debate surrounding Swine Flu, or should I say Influenza A, or even H1N1, has turned to the media handling of this event, causing many to argue that it has been overhyped. So as consumers of media become more analytical and savvy, how do we know which media to trust and will this become a case of crying wolf? Many argue that other viruses such as SARS were hyped so the news is now falling on deaf ears. We’ve had the credit crunch spreading through the papers for months now; this is something new.

Maureen Taylor, previously the national medical reporter for CBC Television News, gave some timely advice to journalists in a recent article in which she advises against predicting outcomes. Radio 2 recently discussed the ‘worst case scenario’ and the Guardian ran the headline ‘Up to 1.2 million could be hospitalized in Britain in event of pandemic’. Hardly reassuring news and it is speculation not fact, as we continuously hear of the ‘possible’ pandemic. Thomas Abraham, spokesman for the WHO added: ‘We have consistently said a pandemic is imminent’ but the outcome is about as uncertain as the name we are meant to use for the virus, so why does the British media assume the worst? The fact is it makes a more dramatic story than the news that 27 people in Britain have the virus and seem to be okay.

The US government are now saying that it will be ‘less severe than feared’ yet despite having fewer cases and no deaths, we in Britain remain more cautious with Sir Liam Donaldson calling this ‘premature’. Perhaps it’s a cultural difference that we prefer to focus on the negative. Maureen writes that she doesn’t feel the Canadian media hyped SARS and it would be interesting to compare this with the reporting in the UK.

Our media industry analysis at Mediatrack for clients around the globe often calls for a comparison of markets and how the media report international events. What is clear about Swine Flu is that readers are losing a degree of faith and trust in the media they read, posing a bigger threat to the future of public relations, which is not to be sneezed at.