The Boy Who Cried Wolf!

"...And in other news, Bangalore has FINALLY recorded its first H1N1 death"

A news channel spoke of this depressing news in the same tone as one declaring the winner of the Miss Universe beauty pageant.

I am perfectly aware that I've taken up a theme that's been thoroughly thrashed before and that all I'm doing here and now would come under the "All talk, no action" category... Still...

"Help! HELP!!! There's a WOLF at large!!!"

Every time I switch on a news channel, any news channel, I never fail to work up this furious indignation at how the media have been going on about the H1N1 epidemic. Since the first few days within the arrival of H1N1 in India, the media have been hyping the matter to the extent that one can not possibly discern if things really are as bad as they're made out to be. Each death, each infection is blown up to appear so daunting as to drive the entire population into a blind panic.

"Oh, not AGAIN!"
"Wolf?! Yeah, right...!!!"

Then again, even if the situation truly were that critical, there will be a considerable percentage of the population, that will brush the whole thing off, saying,"Tchah! These media people! They don't care about how they say what they say! All they care about is how to sensationalize news enough to lure in the unsuspecting masses and raise their TRP..." So there's a chance that these people may fall prey to the apparently wide-spread disease.

So where is the balance to be struck?

I'm glad that the media have got their heads back on (or have them had screwed on tight by the government), and have started asking the general public not to panic, and even in educating them as to how they could deal with the circumstances.

I suppose we ought to take everything the media say with a pinch of salt. We could talk to our doctors. We could take precautions. But most importantly, we must keep ourselves from losing our heads!