30th
Watching the News :: Compassion Fatigue
I’ve been tied down this past week—not literally of course, because my super human powers would be able to break any rope that tired to bind me. But tied down because of our WMF board meetings and then the Q conference in Austin.
I just got home last night and am catching up on a week’s worth of e-mail. I also took the day off (flex-time) and spent part of the morning flipping through several news stations to catch up on current events as well.
A couple things popped right off the screen.
First, George Clooney is in Omaha filming his newest movie and the people around here are going nuts.
Second. Swine Flu sure has our attention.
Wow.
I’m not sure if I should be scared about this (I’m referring to Swine Flu, not George Clooney being in town). I mean, I know that people are scared—or at least that’s what I picked up from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the others. But I’m trying to put this in relative proportion.
I know a lot of people who have died from AIDS—in fact, I helped name some of them who were just babies and I visit their graves every year. During many visits to Calcutta since 1993, I have cared for countless people who died from Tuberculosis. Throughout East and West Africa, I know of communities who have experience tremendous loss because of Malaria. These three diseases alone take millions of lives each year, yet largely go under-reported in the media.
Sadly, I myself am guilty of growing numb to the tragedy and loss that AIDS, TB and Malaria have scorched the earth with.
Watching the news today reminded me of an excellent book I read nearly 10 years ago, Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death by Susan D. Moeller. So after getting a pretty heavy dose of the Swine Flu pandemic hysteria, I went up to my little library, lit a candle, poured a cup of coffee and opened up Compassion Fatigue to chapter 2, “Covering Pestilence: Sensationalizing Epidemic Disease.”
After a re-reading of this chapter I just about posted this quote on my blog, but thought it might come across insensitive to just put it out there without unpacking it, however, here’s something to consider:
Body counts alone, even from the United States, do not make the news nor determine the extent of coverage. So whose lives count? How do the media select which epidemics to cover? Preventable tragedies, illnesses which have cures or vaccines, and cause their harm less because of their innate virulence than because of want of money or public will, rarely make splashy headlines. The best predictor of coverage is an indication that some horrible disease is spreading and posing a global—or at least widespread—risk to people of the same demographic profile as the media’s audience (white, middle-class Americans). Joseph McCormick, chief of the Special Pathogens Branch of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), noted: ‘Again and again, the viruses that emerge from the remote parts of the earth and assail the indigenous population only gain attention when they move out of a small area to affect larger numbers—or when they kill off wealthy people or foreigners, especially Americans. Diseased white Westerners are always a sure bet when it comes to attracting attention. If the right people aren’t infected or dying, outbreaks that occur all the time… go unnoticed’.” (pages 57-58)
Some people call me a skeptic, I’m not convinced. But what I am convinced of is that the 24-hour news cycle is a big business, and right now there’s no juicy sex-scandal, the economy isn’t great but it’s at least stabalizing if not on a slow recovery, and there’s not a lot of “exciting” war news to cover at the moment—or at least there’s no new angle or gimmick of covering any of the current conflicts in a way that is catching and keeping people’s attention.
My concern is that to keep our attention, the media is over-saturating the airwaves with breaking news about the Swine Flu. Sure it’s news. Bad news. But there are a number of disease and epidemics throughout the world that are proportionally more threatening and rarely get any coverage.
What’s also interesting is that the formula Susan Moeller outlined 10 years ago in her book seems to be getting some play today. She writes:
- “First, in order to establish their objectivity, their seriousness and the thoroughness of their research, the media include hard-science images in their stories: an electron micrograph of the causal virus or bacteria (usually color-enhanced in neon scarlet, chartreuse and cobalt tones) or a medical digram of how these agents reproduce in the body.” (page 66)
- “Second, to illustrate the source of the epidemic (if known), pictures are published or aired of the insects—such as fleas—or animals—such as rats or cows—that harbor the disease.” (page 67)
- “Third, to establish the contagiousness of the disease, photographs are shown of space-suited doctors or technichicans and of masked civilians. Often when the outbreak has occurred in a Third-World environment, photographs of seam-sealed doctors are juxtaposed with bandanna-ed civilians as a way of demonstrating the inadequacy of indeigenous efforts to combat the epidemic.” (page 67)
- “Fourth, to establish the deviant nature of the disease, explicitly, if not revolting images are shown of the victims and/or their injuries.” (page 67)
- “Fifth, to establish the deadliness of the epidemic, the media show photographs of the dead or of burials and funerals.” (page 67)
- “Sixth, to suggest that the epidemic is under control and to bring closure to the coverage, the media publish or air pictures of the cleanup efforts. Sometimes images of antiseptic, sterile laboratory scenes depicting Western efforts to halt the spread of the epidemic are contrasted with images of messy, local mop-up efforts by impressed sanitation workers.” (page 67)
It sure seems to me like the first few phases of the formula are in full force.
Now I understand a big part of the concern is about the need for a vaccine, and let’s hope the medical community can figure this out quickly, but let’s put the rest of this story in perspective.
First, I sure hope for everyone’s sake that this isn’t the worst health crisis the world has experienced in 90 years. I think victims of AIDS, TB, Malaria and several other pandemics would disagree, and in fact, probably be insulted and offended by the amount of attention this is getting in relation to what they’ve suffered.
Second, more than 13,000 people have already died from complications from the common flu so far this year. This should actually be some breaking news. How tragic. How shocking. How sad.
Third, watch the news cycle, and I bet that the six phased formula Susan Moeller outlined in her book will play itself out once a “sexier” story hits the news and can capture our attention. What’s sad about this is that the poorest and most vulnerable victims of the world’s health pandemics will once again be marginalized until those in power feel threatened.
So let’s all pray that this outbreak takes as few lives as possible and let’s be vigilant that the media doesn’t prey on attention spans and further create toxic compassion fatigue in each of us.
