An interesting piece from Ben Goldacre, a doctor who writes the 'Bad Science' column in The Guardian about dubious scientific claims from all sides, particularly the media.
First it was the emails, and the tweets. This is all nonsense about the aporkalypse, surely? Just like with Sars, and bird flu, and MMR, is this all hype? The answer is no, but more interesting is this: for so many people, their very first assumption on the story is that the media are lying. It is the story of the boy who cried wolf.
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By Tuesday, pundit-seekers from the media were suddenly contacting me, a massive nobody, to say that swine flu is all nonsense and hype, like some kind of blind, automated naysaying device. "Will you come and talk about the media overhyping swine flu?" asked Case Notes on Radio 4. No. "We need someone to say it's all been overhyped," said BBC Wales.
I assumed they were adhering, robotically, to the "balance" template, but no: he kept at it, even when I protested and explained. "Yeah, but you know, it could be like Sars and bird flu, they didn't materialise, they were hype." Simon Jenkins suggested the same thing. It's not true, I said. They were risks, risks that didn't materialise, but they were still risks. That's what a risk is. I've never been hit by a car, but it's not idiotic to think about it. Simon Jenkins won't be right if nobody dies, he'll be lucky, like the rest of us. Do people think this flappily in casinos? The terrible truth is yes.
In the time that I have been writing this piece – no embellishment – I've had similar calls off This Week at the BBC ("Is the coverage misleading?"), Al-Jazeera English ("We wanted to talk to someone on the other side, you know, challenging the fear factor"), the Richard Bacon Show on Five Live ("Is it another media scare like Sars and bird flu?") and many more.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/29/swine-flu-hypeYes, I think the media (in the UK and US, and many more countries, I've no doubt) is having a field-day with this, both hyping it and saying "it's all hyped". It all ends up with more viewers, listeners or readers for them. When it was announced today that
the British couple who were diagnosed with swine flu have engaged the top PR agent in Britain to sell their story to the papers, a professor of media was wheeled on to the radio to argue "it's awful that they profit from this situation". But Max Clifford defended himself and the couple by saying "the media is profiting from this; why shouldn't these individuals? It's not as if they're selling any
useful information; it's just a human interest story". And for once, I found myself agreeing with him. The media is trying to have its cake and eat it.
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