UPDATED Ham On The Lam

Three Little Piggies Went To ???

Authorities remained uncertain about the whereabouts of the three swine-flu-infected pigs from a Minnesota state fair and the pigs say they want to keep it that way, even though officials Monday confirmed that at least one of the porker perps tested positive for swine flu.

Attempts to renew yesterday’s conversation with self-styled pig leader Football weren’t initially successful. All attempts are under anonymous source rules that prevent revealing the pig’s whereabouts or method of communication.

In yesterday’s interview, Football sharply criticized the media coverage that began Friday when the United States Department of Agriculture said preliminary tests showed possible swine flu.

“So we may have swine flu, so what?” said the pig who asked to be identified only as Football. “We’re swine – what’re we supposed to get, chicken pox?”

Authorities speculated the pigs may have been infected by a visiting group of students, a suspicion shared by Football who said “Sneezing and wheezing little brats were everywhere. When are you people going to learn basic sanitation?”

Asked for clarification, Football said “You ever see a pig sneeze into his hand and then touch a doorknob?”

Minnesota and federal authorities have mostly stuck to an explanation that says the pigs at the fair were sent to a slaughterhouse shortly afterward, and Football confirmed that was the suspected destination when he and his companions made their getaway.

“Those little piggies all were going to the Final Market,” Football said “and when me and my buddies figured that out we acted fast.

“We knew you people were suckers for believing your own H1N1 hype, so when we got to the ramp into that truck, we all started hacking and wheezing at the herders, who backed off in a panic. That’s when we made our break.”

Football wouldn’t say exactly how he and his fellow escapees managed to leave the fairgrounds except to say cryptically that “there were enough politicians around to hide in plain sight.”

Asked to share details of their future plans, Football would only snort and squeal, a move he later confided had been copied wholesale from the Republican National Committee. He added that he and his fellow escapees hoped to meet others in the wilderness of northwestern Minnesota, banding together for mutual defense and support.

“We hear there are some moderate Republicans in those woods,” Football said “and we hope to make common cause against the oppression and persecution of our peoples.”

Told that public fears were based on the pigs spreading the flu virus they had probably acquired from humans back to more humans, Football’s squeal of laughter went on for seconds before he was able to gasp “You mean like from close personal contact?”

The squealing resumed until Football again got enough control to add “Look Pal, if there’s any personal contact, it won’t start from us. And I think I’m speaking for all pigs when I say you can tell any human who wants that to eat me!”

###

Ham On The Lam

Three Little Piggies Went To ???

Authorities remained uncertain about the whereabouts of the three swine-flu-infected pigs from a Minnesota state fair and the pigs say they want to keep it that way.

Speaking only on condition that his whereabouts and communication method not be revealed, the lead porker sharply criticized the media coverage that began Friday when the United States Department of Agriculture said preliminary tests showed possible swine flu.

“So we may have swine flu, so what?” said the pig who asked to be identified only as Football. “We’re swine – what’re we supposed to get, chicken pox?”

Authorities speculated the pigs may have been infected by a visiting group of students, a suspicion shared by Football who said “Sneezing and wheezing little brats were everywhere. When are you people going to learn basic sanitation?”

Asked for clarification, Football said “You ever see a pig sneeze into his hand and then touch a doorknob?”

Minnesota and federal authorities have mostly stuck to an explanation that says the pigs at the fair were sent to a slaughterhouse shortly afterward, and Football confirmed that was the suspected destination when he and his companions made their getaway.

“Those little piggies all were going to the Final Market,” Football said “and when me and my buddies figured that out we acted fast.

“We knew you people were suckers for believing your own H1N1 hype, so when we got to the ramp into that truck, we all started hacking and wheezing at the herders, who backed off in a panic. That’s when we made our break.”

Football wouldn’t say exactly how he and his fellow escapees managed to leave the fairgrounds except to say cryptically that “there were enough politicians around to hide in plain sight.”

Asked to share details of their future plans, Football would only snort and squeal, a move he later confided had been copied wholesale from the Republican National Committee. He added that he and his fellow escapees hoped to meet others in the wilderness of northwestern Minnesota, banding together for mutual defense and support.

“We hear there are some moderate Republicans in those woods,” Football said “and we hope to make common cause against the oppression and persecution of our peoples.”

Told that public fears were based on the pigs spreading the flu virus they had probably acquired from humans back to more humans, Football’s squeal of laughter went on for seconds before he was able to gasp “You mean like from close personal contact?”

The squealing resumed until Football again got enough control to add “Look Pal, if there’s any personal contact, it won’t start from us. And I think I’m speaking for all pigs when I say you can tell any human who wants that to eat me!”

###

New Rules, Same Virus, Same Media

 

The World Health Organization has answered an ancient riddle:

 

Q: When is a pandemic not a pandemic.

 

A: When you call it something else.

 

The World Health Organization said Friday it would revise its rules for declaring a spreading disease a pandemic. The disease-du-jour, of course is H1N1, Swine Flu to its friends, and its rapid geographic spread a few weeks back was the cause of even more rapidly spreading silliness among governments, health organizations and the media.

 

Schools were closed, government offices darkened, dust masks were donned and handshaking, hugging and kissing became antisocial acts as the media went into Energizer Bunny journalism mode. When the W.H.O. raised its threat level to five on a six-point scale, so much dark suit/deep tone manure was spread that the few apparent facts had trouble fighting their way to the surface. Those that made it included:

 

·        The new flu spread rapidly, but no more rapidly than the usual annual flu.

·        The new flu could kill, but far fewer deaths have been connected to it than the routine thousands of deaths from even mild regular flu seasons.

·        Far from being new, the flu strain could have been circulating among pigs for years.

 

On the Monday after it announced it was rethinking things, W.H.O. figures showed almost13,000 confirmed H1N1 cases in 46 countries, with 92 deaths. The same day, a W.H.O. press release on yellow fever mentioned that disease’s estimated toll at 206,000 annual cases and 52,000 deaths.

 

Yellow fever, of course, suffers from bad press relations when compared to Swine Flu, and has been unable to grasp the same amount of worldwide public attention in spite of striking almost 16 times the victims of swine flu and taking 565 times the lives.

 

As far as what the new rules might be or whether Swine Flu might move from Stage 5 to Stage 6 in the Pandemic Pantheon, here’s what I was able to find on the W.H.O. website in the last paragraph of a May 18 report:

 

“Moving from Phase 5 to Phase 6

34. The current process is based purely on geographical spread and not on severity of disease. Several Member States spoke in favour of giving the Director-General greater flexibility in the progression between different phases.”

 

Although this quote is in International CratSpeak, and translation is a notoriously difficult art, it seems the gist is that Member States told the Director-General to lay off the alarm bell and stop scaring folks needlessly.

 

I could find no similar guidance on any of several media organization sites, but if the World Health Organization disease monitor process becomes rational, the media will respond as  they always have to news that contradicts news previously reported.

 

They’ll ignore it.

###

 

 

Weekend Tids and Bits

 

RULE, MS. BRITANNIA! After 341 years of the job’s existence, beginning with John Dryden, Britain finally appointed a woman as Poet Laureate. Carol Ann Duffy, 53, told the BBC that she decided to accept the offered position “purely because they hadn’t had a woman.” The term of the job runs ten years, which should give Great Britain enough time to collect its wits after such a hasty plunge into modern practice.

 

EGYPT FOLLOWS RAHM’S ADVICE right out the window. Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, has been widely quoted as saying “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” So Egypt, an overwhelmingly pork-avoiding Muslin nation, is responding to the swine flu crisis by slaughtering all the 300,000 or so pigs owned and eaten by the nation’s minority Coptic Christians. See, that way it’s not state-sanctioned oppression of a minority, it’s just sound public health.

 

NOT TONIGHT, DEAR – THE COALITION GOVERNMENT WRANGLING GIVES ME A HEADACHE is the refrain from women in Kenya, says CNN. They’re withholding their favors for a week to protest political divisiveness. CNN did not report what the millions of married women elsewhere in the world were protesting.

 

AL-QAIDA USED HOTMAIL to communicate following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and plotted the location of other possible targets in an almanac, the AP reports, citing a guilty plea agreement. Seems the bad guys had a problem with a similar attempt on Yahoo. Although both Microsoft and Yahoo are locked in a struggle for e-mail El Supremo, neither marketing department seems to have recognized the presented opportunity.

 

THE MEASURED, CALM SWINE FLU REPORTING of the last week caused tremendous runs on dust masks around the globe, even though the number of confirmed deaths is ten – nine in Mexico and one in the United States. So far there have been no reports of an upsurge in personal lightning protection sales, even though the National Weather Service says lightning kills and average of 62 Americans every year. Clearly another case of press bias.

 

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE chairman Michael Steele says of the coming David Souter Supreme Court vacancy that “the president should take his time and search for a nominee whose legal views are consistent with and reflective of mainstream America.” It’s the first known instance of a major U.S. political party taking its membership out of Supreme Court consideration.

###

Back To Top

 

 

 

 

Suggestion For Closet Storytellers

 

Journalism should come out of the closet.

 

No, not that one.

 

The secret of most journalists is that they are closet writers and storytellers. Although hiding in the personas of just-the-facts reporters, they exert a very strong influence over public discourse, turning what should be a recital of facts into a compelling drama.

 

Take the current Swine Flu situation, or, if you prefer, the H1N1 virus situation. After almost a week of conflicting but widely and wildly trumpeted stories in all media, this paragraph in a GlobalPost report by Christine Gorman sums up what is known quite nicely:

 

“The WHO had received notice of 114 cases of human swine flu from seven countries. Officially, eight people have died — seven in Mexico and one in the U.S. The death in the U.S., reported Wednesday, was of a 23-month-old child in Texas.”

 

Other than adding that the toddler who died was visiting from Mexico, those few facts from the World Health Organization cover most of what’s known.

 

But while those are the confirmed facts, they don’t make much of a story. Stories have beginnings that introduce the characters, middle parts that show the characters in conflict, and endings that wrap up all loose threads.

 

Saying eight persons have died from an apparently new variety of a disease that kills 36,000 Americans annually doesn’t generate much drama, so the first question aimed at President Obama at his Wednesday new conference was, according to a Huffington Post transcript:

 

“With the flu outbreak spreading and worsening, can you talk about whether you think it's time to close the border with Mexico and whether -- under what conditions you might consider quarantining, when that might be appropriate?”

 

Ignore that our record on closing the border with Mexico for any reason isn’t stellar. The question isn’t asking for facts, it’s suggesting a plot development and asking for a episode synopsis.

 

That’s necessary for storytelling, and generally follows the plot outline of the 1918 flu epidemic, which is boy meets girl/boy infects girl/boy and girl die. Closing borders and establishing quarantines are dramatic events, and both stories and storytellers need drama.

 

Which is why the core of the common-sense answer from No Drama Obama probably frustrated the storytellers: “But the most important thing right now that public health officials have indicated is that we treat this the same way that we would treat other flu outbreaks, just understanding that, because this is a new strain, we don't yet know how it will respond.”

 

President Obama also noted that a border closing would be “akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States,” and reminded us all to wash our hands, cover our coughs stay home when we’re sick.

 

Good, solid advice, but certainly not as dramatic as repeated use of “pandemic.” Or photos of folks wearing masks, which may not provide much protection but make great visuals. Or governors declaring states of emergency, even if the emergency they have in mind is that their name has been missing for three news cycles.

 

It will be a while before this all shakes out, but until then, here’s a  suggestion that will allow news consumers to know when they’re about to read reporting or storytelling. It’s a simple style change, really. Here’s an example, for a reporting story from the nation’s capitol:

 

WASHINGTON – President Obama etc.

 

The other is for story-telling:

 

ONCE UPON A TIME IN WASHINGTON – President Obama etc.

 

###

Back To Top

 

 

 

 

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.

 

###