A’pork’alypse Now

1 June 2009

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Dan Higgins is an author who has written for the BBC, the New Statesman, the Independent and many other publications.

fiona bruce

It is a “threat to the whole of humanity” exclaimed the front page of The Sun last week. I’d always envisioned something much more cataclysmic. In Independence Day it was aliens that threatened existence, in Deep Impact it was a massive asteroid…in reality, according to The Sun at least, it is flu contracted from a pig farm in Mexico. It certainly could’ve brought an interesting twist to the plot of Babe 2: Pig in the city. In 2006, there were fifteen predictions that the world was going to end, most of which were prophesized centuries ago. These included catastrophic climate change occurrences like a super-volcano or the destruction of the Ozone layer, an all-out nuclear war and even a robot takeover but not one of them foresaw a swine flu pandemic. Even the black hole experiment was more exciting than this. So, maybe out of complacency or perhaps a weariness of sensationalist tabloid headlines, I refused to get caught up in it (not literally of course, if you could refuse to have the flu then we wouldn’t be in this situation).

After a day of scare-mongering newspaper, internet and radio reports on the outbreak of swine flu, I was relying on the BBC to give me an honest, balanced and reassuring piece that would put everything in perspective.

Who better to front this than Fiona Bruce? She, is the human embodiment of BBC reliability. We trust her with our antiques, we trust her with crime-watching, and, tonight, we will trust her to give us an objective take on this “threat to the whole of humanity”.

The intro beats in, the graphics swirl and there she is sitting behind the News at Ten desk exemplifying trustworthiness, and then…she turned on me. Little more than five seconds into the programme, she launched a panic-inducing three pronged attack:

  1. “The BBC has learned that swine flu leaflets will be distributed to every house in Great Britain”.  Meaning: We should all know about it because we could all be infected.
  2. “The people who have contracted swine flu were out and about in the UK for FIVE DAYS”. Hang on a minute – you’re twisting the truth there, Fiona. Yes, that statement is correct technically, but what you fail to point out is that rather than swanning about up and down the country sneezing into their hands and wiping it on people’s faces, they simply went to their local shop in Falkirk. Their own family and friends’ tests had all come back negative.
  3. “There isn’t enough medicine for every person”. There it was…a knockout blow swifter and stronger than anything Manny Pacquiao can throw. So if…sorry, when, we do get it…we can’t be saved? We are definitely, indisputably, without a shadow of a doubt, all going to die. The BBC is agreeing with The Sun. Oh Fiona, what have you done? Mass panic ensued.

Now, let’s get something straight. Swine flu is a very real threat, but the media has specific guidelines they must adhere to regarding the reporting of threats to the nation. In fact, the only way we would know if we were losing a war would be if Osama Bin Laden was sitting in Fiona Bruce’s chair waving at us gleefully, gloating in his triumph.

So why, in this case, has the media not only embraced but orchestrated and prolonged a mass panic? The answer is simple: because people will buy it.

Print media is in a time of desperate need. America especially has seen a number of bankruptcies in recent weeks at renowned publications like the Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Just this last week, the future of The Independent was put into doubt. Sales are decreasing every year as free online news becomes easier and easier to access. So, aside from the occasional wall chart or ‘classic’ DVD, newspapers need campaigns to rouse interest and sell copies.

At the same time, the content of the ‘quality’ press has become more like that of a tabloid newspaper with the Russell

Brand/Jonathan Ross furore and the Jade Goody ordeal receiving similar daily coverage in each. This causes the regional  press, the newspapers that are perhaps most under threat from closure, to jump on the story. Thus The Argus screamed “Sussex on swine flu alert” and “University chef suspected of swine flu” (of course the newspaper later failed to mention that he didn’t actually have it). The more print media focuses on an issue, the more this transcends into television news coverage and this has been seen with the current hysteria around swine flu. And so we return to Fiona Bruce (who, I should probably point out, is not personally to blame for all this) and the BBC’s unashamed scare-mongering.

It is interesting, though, that many seem not at all worried. More people than ever appear to be seeing through the ulterior motives of the press. But what if this time it is actually justified and the fact that I am deriding the notion of being told how to wash my hands by various signs and adverts is not only ignorant of me but dangerously complacent? In fact, what if I’ve got this all wrong? After all, it’s not like the BBC to lie…is it?

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