Today’s Disease Is ____________
October 23rd, 2007 by Bill ColleyEnough disease of the day talks, please. The main job of today’s mainstream media is to frighten and not inform. It’s an old fight in newsrooms. An Executive Producer I worked with used to argue we needed to frighten people because there are a great many scary things out there. Lions and tigers and bears I suppose. At least the ones still ranging in places where human predators haven’t done gobbled them up.
Let me paraphrase some folks debunking Internet myths and apply it to the latest disease threats.
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You are unlikely in your lifetime to die from an infection caused by drug resistant bacteria. You aren’t likely going to fall victim to West Nile Virus. Or dog bites or AIDS or hurricanes or from a lack of water.Â
Yes some people will succumb and the media coverage will be intense but you actually have far better odds of hitting a really big lottery jackpot.
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Most of us will actually die from heart disease, car accidents and cancer. Many of these deaths will be considered to have been preventable through early detection, better diet and the use of seat belts. Things we have some degree to control. Even with a great diet, good doctors and avoiding the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the day will arrive when you die. Someone will take your place. In fact many are likely going to take your place.Â
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Local and national media don’t spend much time on all of this because stories about better diet aren’t really news and like any nagging you’re likely to avoid it. I recommend changing the channel. It works for me.Â
We do hear about car accidents when tire manufacturers skimp on the product and then try and duck the consequences. That does qualify as news and it’s nice to see folks getting their comeuppance but it’s still a rare story. At least on the grand scale we saw a few years ago. More people at the time were still croaking from heart disease caused by slothfulness and greasy potato chips.Â
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What gets me about this latest scare, and I was around 15 years ago for the last “flesh eating†panic, is that you have some measure of control here. Judas Priest, people, wash your gold darned hands! Sure your life is hectic but back in grampa’s day the workday was 4 to 8 hours longer and the toilet was outside and the roads were rutted and hospitals were few and far between. To put this in perspective you’ve got the time to wash, shave and brush your teeth and still have hours to spend in front of your TV set.  Again, wash your hands. If need be use the towels to shut off the faucet and grip the door handle. It may appear you’re OC but it sure beats being a small statistic that will draw massive media glare.
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Thank you.
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Amen, Bill. Just recently I have been compared to you, and I say, I am in good company. I agree that if all it takes to ward off a staph infection is the simple act of washing your hands, something the majority of us were taught by our mothers at an early age, I hope, but its hard to say when you are a “longnecker” and probably raised by wolves, than thats the least we can do to protect ourselves and our children.
Of course the media thrives on news items like this, after all, all you really need to be a newscaster is a small class in sensationalism. Ethics and just doing the right thing be damned!!!!
October 23rd, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I agree Bill - good post.
The worst offenders is television news. Some of their fright-inducing news teases are just funny. Like the ones that say, “‘Are the toys in your home killing your children?’ Tune in at 6.” It’s pretty bad.
Neither WBOC not WMDT really do this, so we’re lucky down here.
That said, potnetgal, most journalists do not ddo scare tactics. Most of them are higly-educated, poorly paid individuals. Most reporters spend their nights at city council meetings, keeping an eye on the proceedings, so you don’t have to.
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Often, what should be obvious good habits elude some.
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Lefty, either they are fright inducing journalists, or highly educated poorly paid journalists, which is it? While I agree that most are the latter, they do not write the releases they read, they have the general managers who have writers to do that. There are some journalists with integrity who will not read some of the garbage that scares the viewing audiences on air, I have worked with a few of them at a station in Philadelphia, but integrity doesnt sell, scare tactics do.
RonR - I agree with you 100%
October 23rd, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Good habits and common sense…or educating oneself. Of course I practise good habits and hygiene and hope I have common sense but it seems to me there are those who seem to go way overboard and the result is, IMHO, that we give our bodies absolutely little chance of having anything to fight with. Vaccinations are given which, generally, are live…or half live…organisms of that which we are hoping to fight and beat. Penicillin…now most of the antibiotics…have been so often demanded and prescribed for the most minor of infections that even the super antibiotics have a slim chance of fighting something serious. For some years we’ve had germicidal hand cleaners…not a bad thing unless you know people who have become totally obsessive with their usage. Sure, we hate germs and the idea of the germs of others, bacteria etc. invading our organs, skin, airways but if we are so afraid of a little being a good thing we are bound to end up with something difficult to control.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:04 am
“The main job of today’s mainstream media is to frighten and not inform.”
I think the job of mainstream media is to entertain and push agendas. If you want to be scared you should find the stories mainstream media ignores, for example Google : Joel Hinrich
October 24th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Problem is…in this area as well as countless others…we the people take everything from the media as gospel and have ended up a fear-ridden society. And as far as health situations go, remember…one day what you may enjoy is bad for you, the next…oops, no! It’s actually “good for you”. We’ve seen that with eggs, coffee, butter, chocolate, all fats, some fats, wine. I just KNOW that one day they will retract the cigarette statements and tell us…”New findings are that cigarettes are good for your health, prevent many problems, make you less stressed and, in fact, the biggest threat to our lives is stress…causing heart problems, cancers. We (the media) are ashamed and embarrassed to report, in fact, we are the primary source of your ills”.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
World war 3, weapons of mass destruction, with us or with the terrorist, and the best… newkler pro-lif-er-er-er-ation. Look no further then the man at the the top and his administration. The biggest fear monging person in the U S of A! Keep drinking his Koolaid people! The real fear is that he carries that (football) The button to end society as we know it.