When Pigs Report

 

It ain’t as easy as it looks.

 

Those who think the impending death of newspapers means we no longer need journalism tend to think any citizen can get whatever information is needed from the web. And it’s true – you can get all sorts of information from the web with just a few clicks.

 

But whether or not that information is accurate, organized or even needed is something else. Consider the current Swine Flu Festival, being conducted across the web because today is Friday, and except for the occasional disaster, not a lot happens on Fridays.

 

Start with The Drudge Report, the web’s supermarket tabloid on steroids. It’s main story screams “Outbreak” and the kickers over a picture of pigs calmly report:

 

“MEXICO CONFIRMS 16 DEAD; 50 MORE DEATHS BEING PROBED...

Travelers warned of mysterious respiratory illness...

Mexico City launches huge vaccination campaign...

7 hit by strange new swine flu in USA...

Heighten Risk of Pandemic...

Concern in Texas...

Mutated from pigs, transmitted to humans...”

 

Now flu of any sort is nasty stuff. The World Health Organization (WHO), with its customary flair for finely tuned estimates, says flu kills 250,000-500,000 persons annually. So this is really serious and threatening news, right?

 

They think so at AFP (Agence France Press), where around noon they were counting 16 swine flu deaths, with Mexico “probing 50 more.” That must be French conservatism, because 14 hours earlier, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) had 20 dead and 137 infected.

 

Reuters, the financial information firm with a news hobby, reported in the early afternoon today that “A deadly strain of swine flu never seen before has killed as many as 61 people.” They got to 61 bodies by taking the 16 dead announced by Mexican authorities and tossing in 45 more that “may” have died from the disease.

 

The Associated Press struck a similar tone with “At least 16 people - and possibly dozens more” dead in Mexico from swine flu, noting that WHO was reporting 57 dead, but that it wasn’t sure from what, and dutifully saying far down in the story that only 16 had been confirmed by Mexican authorities as being from swine flu.

 

Bloomberg has been taking the most cautious approach, saying “Disease trackers are asking U.S. hospitals to help follow a new strain of swine flu and are trying to determine whether it’s related to hundreds of illnesses and 57 deaths in Mexico.”

 

And The New York Times handled it in a one-paragraph item citing the WHO figure of 57, and a much longer and more explanatory story on the seven U.S. cases, all of whom have recovered.

 

Now anyone with a web browser and a lot of time can read all this stuff and sort it out, and call the sources with questions, and decide what is fact, what is speculation, and what is some health bureaucrat enjoying his or her time in the media spotlight. But most of us don’t have that kind of time or the required skills.

 

Instead, we depend on folks called journalists. And when the last newspaper has shuffled off to history’s graveyard, we’ll still need journalists to sort things out and report the event, because it ain’t as easy as it looks.

 

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