 Nagaraj Nagarajan Chelliah
A (H1N1) can be deadly.
Swine flu might claim 120 million lives across the world.
The worst is yet to come as winter arrives.
After shouting aloud these warnings 24x7 for the last four months, the media in the west has finally started to focus on the other side of the story. And only this other side would calm the nerves of the public, but still keep them alert.
Swine flu: Media test positive for social responsibility
The other side is: Yes, even the common influenza can be deadly and it claims thousands of lives across the globe every year.
The second has to be read more carefully: Swine flu ''MIGHT'' claim 120 million lives, not ''WILL''.
The western media has turned to the experts' version as normal people have been left confused and panicked because of the constant overflow of 'Breaking news' and 'News alerts'.
In fact, this panic reminds us of the bird flu and Sars scare which were ''going to kill millions of people'' .The electronic media in India had then not grown to the current level, and so though there was a lot o f hype, at least people who had been quarantined were not asked to share their experience 'live on air'. Now, it baffles me what/why one would want to know about the experience of being quarantined.
What would you term it, if not 'media hype' or 'fear mongering', when interviews with a swine flu victim's family are telecast round the clock for days continuously, then reporting on the lack of facilities in a private hospital, following it up with what the victim's family want to do next? Even the media played up the grieving family of
14-year-old Reeda Sheikh demanding the resignation of the Union Health Minister. It was like a soap opera going on in place of a news bulletins.
However, how do we blame the Indian media of fear mongering when they had nothing else to pull the viewers to them.
Irrespective of whether the western media had a hidden agenda behind playing up the panic, for the Indian channels, A H1N1 seemed to have come as a saving grace to keep themselves occupied with when the country was devoid of high politics or scandals. What's worse, there was no cricket happening all this while!
Remember, Shah Rukh Khan's detention in a US airport was the main news for most of Saturday and Sunday -- it seemed the country had forgotten the imminent apocalypse, swine flu -- as channels could get better visually appealing interviews from Bollywood's top celebrities.
Otherwise, what could explain the importance being given to swine flu, which is less dangerous than TB that infects more people every minute and claims millions of lives every year? And a person with TB can infect 10-15 every year.
Or for that matter, let's remember the airtime dedicated to cholera and malaria, which kill millions of people every year.
Compared with them, swine flu has infected around 1.8 lakh people till now, and around 1,500 (not even 1%) have died due to it.
Do you think media overplayed swine flu panic?
But unaware or unconcerned of some of these contagious diseases, if almost every TV watching person -- we are not talking about those in the rural areas, as the TV channels have not shown how those folks are preparing to fight the virus, as also those in slums who say they have bigger problems to think about -- steps out of the home with masks, bought for hundreds of rupees -- not properly educated that surgical masks can do little to protect you from H1N1, but after seeing such masks on TV -- whom do we blame for the panic, if not the media which is playing it up? |
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