On 12 Aug, 20:55, renu ramanath <[email protected]> wrote:
> from The Hoot
>
> Did the media catch the flu?
>
> The tempering words of a few individuals cannot possible negate this overall
> picture that comes through the visuals. KALPANA SHARMA asks if the media
> lost perspective in the way it covered the HINI Flu.
>
> Posted Wednesday, Aug 12 16:48:10, 2009
>
> Second Take
> Kalpana Sharma
>
> Is the media responsible for the current swine flu panic in India or is the
> government’s response to blame? This question is being asked and will
> continue to be asked. While the government could be faulted on many counts,
> we have to consider the media’s responsibilities when there are health
> emergencies.
>
> First of all, is this a health emergency? Union Health Secretary Naresh Dayal
> was heard on television within a day of the first death being reported
> appealing to the media to have a sense of perspective on the issue. He
> pointed out that in India, of every 1,000 live births, 55 children die. Yet,
> the media never considers this a health emergency worth their attention. But
> with swine flu, every news channel and newspaper has lead with this story for
> days on end.
>
> So has the media lost perspective? If you look at just the numbers affected
> and the fatalities, you would conclude that it has. More people die each day
> from malaria, infection, diarrhoea and other gastro-intestinal infections,
> and tuberculosis than have died of swine flu since the first incidents were
> reported. Therefore why the overdrive by the media?
>
> One obvious reason is that when a disease hits the metros or the middle
> classes, it becomes a subject worth pursuing but when it affects people in
> remote areas, no news organisation is willing to invest in sending people to
> cover it. Every year, hundreds of people die of kala azar, malaria and other
> infectious diseases in non-metro areas in India. Yet the coverage is only
> perfunctory. Only if the spread of infection threatens our cities does the
> media wake up and take note.
>
> Typically, television news focused almost exclusively on the swine flu for
> days on end. On August 11, the Centre asked TV channels to show restraint in
> their coverage. Although NDTV was one channel that did run a programme
> reminding viewers about other diseases and deaths caused by them that are a
> daily occurrence in a country like India, the main news bulletins on all
> channels were filled with non-stop visuals of people in face masks, crowds
> lining up in front of hospitals and grief stricken families who have lost a
> loved one. The problem with this type of coverage is that it tends to make
> the problem larger than it is. The tempering words of a few individuals
> cannot possible negate this overall picture that comes through the visuals.
> And when one issue is covered to the exclusion of all else, then the general
> public is forced to believe that the problem is acute and out of control when
> it actually is not.
>
> Print, because of the nature of the media, was a little more moderate
> although not across the board. Some newspapers did try and place the health
> crisis within the larger framework of health care and other diseases. Yet,
> as with television, the message that the front pages of newspapers conveyed
> cancelled any moderation that might have been there in the coverage on inside
> pages.
>
> On August 11, for instance, three of Mumbai’s English language papers that I
> monitored led with a swine flu story and had banner headlines. The fourth
> carried it as the first lead but had another story on the top of the fold as
> the second.
>
> The Times of India had a banner headline “Not ready for H1N1: City pvt hosps”
> and carried a photograph of doctors in white protective clothing at the
> Haffkine Institute where tests are conducted. At the same time, also on the
> front page was a story by Nirmala M. Nagaraj under the heading, “India’s
> public health spend amongst lowest” and stated that health spending was even
> less than in some sub-Saharan countries. The placing was significant as it
> used the swine flu to bring home the larger issue of health spending.
>
> On an inside page, TOI carried a diagram explaining how and why H1N1 affects
> the young and healthy. At the bottom of the diagram it raised the question:
> Where is India headed? And answered it: “The last four-five months experience
> has led doctors to ask whether the endemic influenza strains of the country
> actually make us more immune. Incidentally, our mortality rates have been
> one of the lowest”.
>
> The paper also had a five-column item on what other countries did to contain
> the spread of H1N1, including a graphic setting forth best practices. It
> gave a chart with the top 10 countries where deaths caused by the virus had
> been reported. The highest number was from the US. India did not feature
> anywhere on the list.
>
> But do readers read this fine print? Probably not. Most of them will read
> headlines, look at visuals and get into panic mode.
>
> DNA on the same day had a banner headline: “Govt expands war on H1N1”
> followed by a front-page edit with the headline “A 26/11 challenge for public
> health”. “War”? Comparisons to “26/11”, the short form for the terror
> attack on Mumbai last November? Are these really called for? The edit went
> on to state: “While the death toll is still small, there is little doubt that
> in a few weeks from now we will see a dramatic escalation. Nothing less than
> all-out war on H1N1 will suffice anymore.” The next day, August 12, it tried
> to substantiate this point by running a story, based on projected trends,
> under a banner headline: “Swine flu cases may hit 1 crore in December”. Are
> these kinds of projections and the hyperbole in the editorial justified in
> the current situation where in a country of over one billion people, there
> have been 11 deaths and less than a thousand cases of infection?
>
> The Hindustan Times on August 11, interestingly enough, tried to bring in
> some kind of perspective even in its page one banner headline that read:
> “H1N1 kills 3 more, common flu could be killing 572 a day.” The story that
> followed explained how many people die of the common flu in a country like
> the United States and through extrapolation worked out the figure for India.
> One could quibble about the arithmetic but at least an attempt was made to
> place the issue in some kind of larger perspective. The paper also pointed
> out that in the US, there were 6,506 cases of infection from H1N1 and 436
> deaths until August 6. Despite this schools were not closed. As we know, in
> India, dozens of schools have closed if even one student is found to have an
> infection.
>
> On August 12, the Hindustan Times carried an editorial, “Don’t press the
> panic button” that acknowledged that media had “gone into overdrive and are
> reporting on the issue as though it were the Black Death itself.” Targeting
> the electronic media, the editorial went on to state, “Ill-informed
> interviews and the all-pervasive ‘breaking news’ logo have created a
> frightening scenario that has obscured the real facts about the virus and how
> to combat it.”
>
> The Indian Express on August 11 led with a Pune datelined story and reported
> on how it had affected the city. As it is the place with the highest
> incidence of infection, the story would not have added to the panic. And it
> carried a second lead on a totally different subject. A full page was
> devoted inside to flu related stories but otherwise the paper carried news
> from all parts of India.
>
> In some ways, even this partial survey of the print media underlines its
> importance at times like this. The newspapers that have attempted to place
> the issue in perspective would have helped calm the panic, that is if we
> assume people read at all, or read beyond the headlines.
>
> Television news, on the other hand, contributed to the panic reaction that
> led hundreds of people to rush to hospitals to get tested even if they had
> the mildest symptoms. Even the best-equipped public health system cannot
> survive such a battering and India certainly does not have the best of such
> systems.
>
> If the swine flu can teach the media something, it should be this: that there
> are areas like health that require constant and sustained attention and not
> just when a “pandemic” is declared. In many countries, newspapers and news
> channels have dedicated reporters who cover medical and public health issues.
> Over time, these individuals build up a background, contacts and a
> perspective that becomes particularly important at times like this. For
> instance, The Hindustan Times story mentioned above, is written by Sanchita
> Sharma who has been covering health for many years. But most Indian
> newspapers are not willing to assign a person specifically for this beat. As
> a result, when there is a crisis, no senior journalist on the staff is
> equipped to bring in a perspective and guide the coverage.
>
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