Swine Flu hits World Stage

After a relatively small lull in the relentless barrage of fear mongering from the Media, we are hit with the prospect of a new viral pandemic. This time, instead of being Bird Flu, it's Swine Flu.

So before I go into the details of Swine Flu and how dangerous it actually is, lets consider the history of coverage of viral outbreaks. In late 2002 the world was rocked by the emerging threat of the SARS Virus. Generally speaking it emerged from Eastern Asia and it affected thousands of people. For some reason though, SARS began to drop off the Media's Fear List when the Second Gulf War started.

So what about Bird Flu? In late 2004 the news began covering the Bird Flu virus. It was the only thing that actually dominated the News headlines with no room for anything else. So what happened to Bird Flu? Well in 2005 the significant and real threat of terrorism was back.

So is Swine Flu just another story that the Media wants to cover to keep their ratings up? Do people not bother watching the news, or bother reading the news, if nothing bad is happening? I don't think that is the case. People are just as willing to buy a newspaper if it had good news in it, but I guess whoever runs the Media thinks that 'Good News is No News'. (You have to like the little play on words there).

My gut instinct tells me that Swine Flu really isn't as dangerous as the Media is going to make it out to be. It can't be mere coincidence that as soon as things quieten down around the world, a Virus scare will crop up. The Media should stick to real news. Like how is the Iraq war going? We committed to a war which has caused so many deaths and cost so much money, why aren't we hearing anything about it? It's a shame. People are fighting for us and what we stand for, and people are only reading about the Swine Flu.

There is a possibility, though, that Swine Flu is actually a continuation of Bird Flu. According to the BBC, the Swine Flu that is spreading has strains of Bird Flu, Swine Flu and Human Flu, which is why it is able to spread to us. So were the experts right when in 2006 they said that the biggest danger was that Bird Flu would mutate? Have their apocalyptic predictions of a super H5N1 virus come true?

Final Thought Byte : Recent history has shown us that virus' are only covered by the Media if there is a lull in normal news coverage. I'm pretty confident that Swine Flu will be forgotten within a year because something else will have taken it's place. I doubt that the Media knows what it will be and I'm positive we live in countries with freedom of speech, so I doubt it's all a Master Domination Plan. I do think, however, that Media companies, in whichever form they come, want to make profit. And in some ways, the best way to make profit is to make news. It's a shame really, but news is all about the entertainment value.

Tags : Swine Flu, Bird Flu, H5N1, Virus, Media, News