Responsible Journalism & Pandemics

I am 90% back from the flu! This means no more aching, no more fever, no more fatigue and the ability to use my brain is back; however, there is 10% of me that is still stuck with a lingering cough. My little cough is not only physically annoying but something that seems to get noticed by everyone and earns me looks of disdain, horror and fear. I'd like to wear a sign that says, "No, It's not H1N1."

As the cold and flu season is kicking off, H1N1 pandemic fears (irrational or sane as they may be) are as viral as the common cold. So how can journalists report on a pandemic ethically?

Dean Wright, the Global Editor of Ethics, Innovation and News Standards with Reuters, blogged about responsible reporting of infectious disease in light of what he saw happening in journalism when H1N1 first broke. The blog can be found here: http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2009/04/27/swine-flu-walking-the-line-between-hyping-and-helping/

Wright, postulated that the responsibility of reporting on public health emergencies was one that emphasizes information not sensationalism.

I particularly like what Wright had started with -

There’s nothing like a disease outbreak to highlight the value of the media in alerting and informing the public in the face of an emergency.

There’s also nothing like it to bring out some of our more
excessive behavior, essentially shouting “Run for your lives! (but, whatever you do, stay tuned, keep reading the website and don’t forget to buy the paper!).'

The threat of the H1N1 pandemic caused a state of panic and sensationalist reporting. This was especially evident when H1N1 was called the "Swine Flu." Organizations like PETA were using "Swine Flu" as fuel for their agenda, misleading people to believe that you could get H1N1 from eating pork. Governments all over the world ordered the culling of hundreds of thousands of pigs, adversely affecting the livelihood of their farm industries and farmers. Many European countries placed travel restrictions on destinations which had confirmed cases, like Mexico where the economy has a strong base in tourism. The panic had induced economic trouble. In his blog, Wright pointed out that, "One story noted, not surprisingly, that travel and tourism stocks were in turmoil."

In his blog, Wright called for calm, stressing the importance to "... provide the information and insight our audience and customers need to make intelligent decisions ..."

This sensationalism also happened during the HIV/AIDS crisis, when AIDS was labeled as a gay disease and people were afraid to be in the same room with someone who had AIDS. Even today we feel the effects of that media storm as people still need to be reminded that's it's not just a gay disease.

The Neiman Foundation here at Harvard has recently released a "guide" for reporting on pandemics, you can find it here: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101880


And ... again, just in case you didn't get it the first time. I don't have the H1N1, so it's ok to sit next to me in class!