Everyone behold the latest imminent threat to our nation: the swine flu pandemic that is sweeping the United States and the rest of the world! The new Black Death is upon us!
Such a dire tone might be a good starting point for a B-horror movie — say, M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening.” But as I think everyone has found out in one way or another, real life isn’t like the movies.
Yet don’t we all wish life was like the movies sometimes? Based on the number of viewers who tune in to contemporary news networks, the answer for the general public is clearly yes. When I see a headlines such as “Flu spreads fear, confusion” on CNN, there are two things that go through my head: 1. That’s just as tense (and engaging) as that scene in “The Departed” when Billy Costigan finds out there’s a rat in the Massachusetts police force (I must keep watching), and 2. Wow, that story is just as fictional as the first.
The truth of the matter is, while there have been over 250 cases of the swine flu in the United States, there has only been one fatality: a 23-month-old child who had been affected concurrently by a second illness. To put this into perspective, 10,000 individuals meet their fate by way of unintentional injury every year.
While an airborne virus that can spread from human to human does hold the potential to be devastating and is indeed a scary thought, there is a large difference between that potential and the reality of the situation. Furthermore, there is a large difference between entertainment and news.
It is quite clear, however, that for large broadcast networks, maximum viewership trumps all other priorities. Networks “give the people what they want” by adapting their shows to appeal to viewers who watch television primarily to be entertained. Any news that has potential is milked and refined into a story, in much the same way a historical fiction writer works, and we all know “The Da Vinci Code” just can’t be the whole truth.
Entertainment has bled into many different aspects of 21st-century life. There is a clear distinction between the intent of musical artists and entertainers, as there is between films and blockbusters, which is all well and good. However, the unnoticed distinction between true journalism and contemporary news media is just as detrimental as the unnoticed distinction between a fiscal investment and the mere speculation that caused the very real financial pandemic.
— Robert Baldwin is a sophomore biochemistry and philosophy major.