It's hard to know what to be more scared of these days: the Taliban gaining hold of loose nukes in Pakistan, commuting next to someone who looks a little feverish and has a persistent cough, answering a Craigslist ad posted by a med student, or losing one's job.
Then there's the worry about which of those fears are actually worth stressing about. Should we be panicked about the threat of nuclear war? On Fox News, Sean Hannity blurted "Look at the Taliban, how close they're getting to Pakistan's nuclear sites. How frightening is that?" while the Financial Times headlined a story: "Obama says Pakistan nukes in safe hands."
What about getting swine flu? Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN has told us that, "Imminent pandemic is scary no matter how you look at it," yet the Washington Post has soothed us to "Forget Germs. The Real Contagion Is Our Paranoia."
Which crises should truly terrify us? Which potential disasters should make us think about making a quick trip to the store for plastic sheeting and duct tape and then hunkering down in the basement at home surrounded by a wall full of canned goods?
It's no surprise that in the two examples above, the fear-mongering is coming from television. Cable TV, especially, has built its audience on not only breaking the news first, but on being willing to speculate on what's going to happen next. And the Fox News Channel, which has nine of the top 10 programs on cable news and in the first quarter of 2009 beat both CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time total viewers, is especially aggressive in coverage of crises.
But whether on TV, online, on the radio or in print, the crises that receive the most attention in the news are not always (or even often) those that pose the greatest danger or that kill the greatest numbers of people--either in the world or even in the region served by the news outlet. The crises that receive a disproportionate amount of attention are those that are novel, violent and intense--and that not only threaten the media audience but appear to select victims at random. So tales of emerging viruses, terrorist attacks and serial killings have become staples of media coverage.
Those sensational stories are the ones that keep audiences coming back for more. The public is fearful of the unknown...and so watches or listens or reads those stories with a frisson of both trepidation and excitement.
How can you tell whether you are getting a story that is balanced and proportionate to the crisis or one that is fanning panic and hysteria? One quick guide is to evaluate the pictures.
Here, for example, are the three levels of imagery that you should look for in stories about the swine flu (otherwise known as H1N1):
1. No pictures: If there are no images to accompany the story, there's a good chance that the event--or angle on the event--is being considered seriously, but not seen as overwhelmingly important (at least of overwhelming importance to the particular audience of the media outlet).
2. Neutral pictures: To establish their objectivity and seriousness, media will use hard-science photos (say an electron microscope image of the virus),
pictures of animals that are presumed to have initiated the outbreak (think of all the photos of pigs you've seen),
or photographs of some senior politician or health official.
Stories illustrated in such a way may not be entirely balanced, but they are unlikely to be using scare tactics to attract an audience.
3. Emotional images: When media want to emphasize the risk to humans or want to play up the idea of contagion, they run images of space-suited doctors and masked civilians, especially women or young children.
Every one of the nine images of people in an online Time magazine photoessay on Mexico, for example, showed them wearing masks. You or your loved ones may be at risk. Be afraid, such stories are saying. Be very afraid.
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Note: I earlier wrote a book about how media cover crises, and included a chapter on how media cover epidemic diseases: See Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death (pp. 54-95). You can also read it here.
I beg to disagree. Many, many do not.
- Rich people are evil and want to take your money.
- Christians are evil and want to take over America and make you like them.
-Republicans are racists that HATE gays, blacks, etc...
I know that these are commonplace here on The Huffington Post and that is probably why they are not mentioned...because they are a given here.
*Rich people are really only interested in one thing, more money (or at least the power that comes with it).
*Christians are not evil (most of them at least), but when you have a church that preaches from the altar, pushes advertisements against political personalities, and has segments constantly calling for the establishment of a borderline theocracy, you start to think they are trying to tell you what to do. One word: abortion.
*Repubs DO hate gays, blacks, etc. Who was the GOP defending by complaining about the DHS report last month? KKK... Who has been holding Ms. Cali up as a goddess for her stated opposition to equal marrige? Who denigrated our Prez for being an organizer, and blames his election on ACORN?
I would go on, but I know you wouldn't get the point...
Please note as an example of the above, that this gentleman claims to know that 'all' Americans have become either too stupid or too lazy to etc,etc ................- hang on a second, what about the Japanese or the Brits, not to mention the Haitians or the residents of Monaco?
We live in a global village, and it is my view that what happens in Illinois can have an effect in some distant land in the East, and vice versa.
I liked Susan Moeller's article, by the way - succinct, crispy and possibly very necessary.
Oh, maybe for every 30 seconds of swine flu coverage that translates into 30 seconds of something truly important that did not get covered. Fear mongering doesn't just sell papers by appealing to our worst instincts, it also provides a cover for the information that someone doesn't want us to see. Remember, people in every fascist society have been told to be afraid, be very afraid of someone or something because it makes them much easier to herd.
I have yet to hear why this particular strain of influenza is any more dangerous than the flu I endured this past winter. Just because it has porcine origins, we have all this coverage?
Thanks for this article. I started to read your chapter that was linked, but I'm at work--I've bookmarked and will resume reading this evening. That is, of course, if I don't come down with Swine Flu!
I'm not too concerned. I haven't changed my lifestyle. I guess they closed two schools not too far from me, but I guess safety probably is better. Too many people send their kids to school sick, and too many people go to work sick. It could turn bad, but H1N1 doesn't seem to be as strong the farther it goes.
I went to the grocery store the other day and saw all the pork products on sale. It made me laugh, and I bought a lot for cheap! PORK DOES NOT SPREAD H1N1!