How do you think the media are doing in terms of their cumulative response to the current global virus outbreak?

#2

About as I’d expected. Has anyone here been surprised or disappointed?

I think they’re doing an exceptional job even though there looks to be a certain if not excessive amount of sensationalism.

Their obsession with the negative, the graphics showing rising death tolls, is bordering on the macabre.
Sky news here showed ariel footage of London city centre, describing it as ‘completely deserted, like something out of a movie!”
This was bullshit, less traffic & footfall, but plenty of activity still plain to see.
They’re genuinely behaving like you see them portrayed in disaster movies where typically someone punches them in the head!

The media navigate the fine line between not covering stuff and being accused of covering it up and covering too much and being accused of sensationalizing.

So I think some of what they’ve been putting out there is useful and other stuff is unnecessary and may be contributing to a panic. I also think the media needs to stop politicizing the outbreak.

I don’t know. It felt like fearmongering and usually I’d agree, but they just said that a second patient within a 10 mile radius of my home is now in ICU on a ventilator with the virus. This time it is a 40 year old father of 4 with no previous health concerns. This is really happening.

I’ve seen news in two countries, on both private and public TV channels, in the past 6 weeks.
All of the above….
Some very dry, to-the-point, factual.
Others obvious scare mongering with bombastic horror/thriller music, mixed with page filling red lettered scary words,and repetitive images (like 6 times in 10 seconds repetetive).

I could be wrong, but I got a slight suspicion that ad revenues could play a role in some of the broadcasts/broadcasters.

It just depends on your sources. I have a trusted newspaper that is calmly and factually reporting. As always. Meanwhile, the tabloids are screaming we will all die today – as usual.

The stuff I see is pretty harsh, and in the beginning I would have said fear-mongery, until the reports by citizens and medical professionals started coming out of Italy. The personal stories, stuff like that.

We all see and react the way we are prone to react. Scoffers gonna scoff, panickers going to panic. “Clowns to the right of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

I’m with @longgone I trust the news sources I listen to regularly that this is really scary stuff and try not to pay attention to the rest of it.

Journalism should be a pursuit of and reporting of the facts. Focusing only on one aspect can be misleading and should be avoided. The truly good journalists should rise to the surface in times like this and I just don’t see it. To give an example of what I mean, take Howard Stern. He is a goof, his show was pretty tacky, and he seemed to be a basic entertainment fool. But on 9/11, his was some of the best reporting I have ever seen. He recognized what was important and chased after it.

Cheers patrons of flu-ther!
You’ve all done very well.