Convincing broadcaster Katie Derhum opened today’s ITV News at 1.30 with the horrifying line “another victim on anti-social Britain.”At first thought, the line is frightening and chilling and who’d stop anyone grabbing their children and making a frantic get-a-way through Dover. But once again, is this a sign of the times or just more terrifying news agenda set by elitist editors and journalists?
Swine flu is a perfect example of media fear. The BBC reported in April 2009, that up to 40 percent of humans maybe infected within the next six months. In July the same year, the Guardian released figures to show that up to 65,000 people may die, and the Telegraph also reported that there could be 100,000 new cases of swine flu across Britain every day. And then we were bombarded with information, statistics, phone numbers, websites and hand-gel!
So what’s the latest on swine flu? Well unzip your biochemical germ-free suit and read these contrasting facts. January saw only 124 patients in hospital across the UK with the virus and the latest figures show that swine flu has only reached a tenth of people of what the common flu did this winter. The NHS swine flu helpline became obsolete in February after calls depleted from 40,000 a week to lower than 5,000.
The Millennium Bug was an unprecedented and ominous threat which spread around the globe. Scientists, Politicians and media bodies promised detrimental effects when the ticking time bomb of 2000 began. We were told that planes would fall from the sky, hospital equipment would have the adverse affect and people started looking at James Cameron’s Terminator as a retrospective documentary of the future. What actually happened when we entered our new millennium? In Australia two bus ticket machines failed to dates tickets correctly, 150 slot machines in Delaware USA stopped working and most frightening of all, a evacuation alarm sounded at a nuclear power-station in Japan. The cost of the Y2K bug was estimated at around $300 billions.
Exacerbating the news isn’t anything new. HIV and Aids is still a prolific problem for both the UK and the world, but to date only 18 thousand people have died in this country since the outbreak. The news was dominated in the late 80’s with reports that over a million people would die from Aids before 1990. Controversially, the government released the inapt warning “wear a condom or die of ignorance.”
In 2008 the head of Global Battle against Aids, Dr De Cock explained that “all that hysterical fear-mongering about Aids spreading among the sexed-up western youth was a pack of lies.”
Another example of scaremongering includes the 1988 salmonella panic.
Mouthy Conservative Edwina Currie, frightened the nation by saying thousands may die from eating eggs. Then in 1996 the greatest food scare of all took over the nation. 4.4 million cows were slaughtered and the Government's chief scientist John Pattison announced that the human death toll from CJD caught by eating beef could within a few years reach 500,000.
The news has a way of creating buzzwords which become used by all media outlets. How many times have you heard these phrases- War on terror, credit crunch, the Big Freeze, Broken Britain, etc.
I’m not saying we should deny the news or refuse advice from journalist, politicians and scientists as being cynical could have the opposite effect. But maybe its time to be skeptical and make rational decisions from what we read, see and hear.
But as far as this blog goes, trust me, I’m a journalist.
Swine flu is a perfect example of media fear. The BBC reported in April 2009, that up to 40 percent of humans maybe infected within the next six months. In July the same year, the Guardian released figures to show that up to 65,000 people may die, and the Telegraph also reported that there could be 100,000 new cases of swine flu across Britain every day. And then we were bombarded with information, statistics, phone numbers, websites and hand-gel!So what’s the latest on swine flu? Well unzip your biochemical germ-free suit and read these contrasting facts. January saw only 124 patients in hospital across the UK with the virus and the latest figures show that swine flu has only reached a tenth of people of what the common flu did this winter. The NHS swine flu helpline became obsolete in February after calls depleted from 40,000 a week to lower than 5,000.
The Millennium Bug was an unprecedented and ominous threat which spread around the globe. Scientists, Politicians and media bodies promised detrimental effects when the ticking time bomb of 2000 began. We were told that planes would fall from the sky, hospital equipment would have the adverse affect and people started looking at James Cameron’s Terminator as a retrospective documentary of the future. What actually happened when we entered our new millennium? In Australia two bus ticket machines failed to dates tickets correctly, 150 slot machines in Delaware USA stopped working and most frightening of all, a evacuation alarm sounded at a nuclear power-station in Japan. The cost of the Y2K bug was estimated at around $300 billions.
Exacerbating the news isn’t anything new. HIV and Aids is still a prolific problem for both the UK and the world, but to date only 18 thousand people have died in this country since the outbreak. The news was dominated in the late 80’s with reports that over a million people would die from Aids before 1990. Controversially, the government released the inapt warning “wear a condom or die of ignorance.”
In 2008 the head of Global Battle against Aids, Dr De Cock explained that “all that hysterical fear-mongering about Aids spreading among the sexed-up western youth was a pack of lies.”
Another example of scaremongering includes the 1988 salmonella panic.
Mouthy Conservative Edwina Currie, frightened the nation by saying thousands may die from eating eggs. Then in 1996 the greatest food scare of all took over the nation. 4.4 million cows were slaughtered and the Government's chief scientist John Pattison announced that the human death toll from CJD caught by eating beef could within a few years reach 500,000.The news has a way of creating buzzwords which become used by all media outlets. How many times have you heard these phrases- War on terror, credit crunch, the Big Freeze, Broken Britain, etc.
I’m not saying we should deny the news or refuse advice from journalist, politicians and scientists as being cynical could have the opposite effect. But maybe its time to be skeptical and make rational decisions from what we read, see and hear.
But as far as this blog goes, trust me, I’m a journalist.
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