Weve all been alarmed by it. Weve all seen the masks. SARS, West Nile, and Swine Flu have all terrified the US. Whenever an outbreak strikes the news picks up on it and holds onto it with a vice like death grip, and then they squeeze it until it is juiced dry. Once the story has no shock effect, and listeners, readers, and watchers of the news stop reacting to the scare, then, and only then are we given the all clear. Even if the story isnt over for the people it has been affecting, we cant find it in our news programs.

Just recently, we were forced to listen to the same bit of news over and over about the swine flu. It was all based on conjecture and opinion, and contained very little fact. The media was going into a panicked frenzy, but the average American person simply washed their hands more often, and paid closer attention to their hygiene. There was no mass wearing of surgical masks, or people changing their day to day lives. On the whole Americans had a pretty healthy view of it. Why then were all of the media outlets trying to get people to panic?

Big Media and all of the media outlets owned by it, television news casts, cable stations, and newspapers, are money making endeavors. When they cause a panic, be it about the swine flu or a murderer on the loose, they make money. You know what they say about money, right? It makes the world go round. Media turns to these techniques of sensationalism and fear mongering time and time again.

After 9-11 there were people buying sheets of plastic to protect themselves from bombs, and who can forget the fear of Y2K? Americans reacted to these threats, and were looked at for being ridiculous when the threat turned out to be a hoax. Is the lack of reaction to the swine flu a sign that we are becoming desensitized to threats because of Big Medias track record, or are we, as a collective, smart enough to weed out the facts for ourselves? When a huge pandemic does strike are we going to believe anything from the mouths of those who have called wolf for decades? Personally, Im getting a little sick of being called out to a field to occupy the bored people tending our news outlets. Whose afraid of the Big bad Media?

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