Monday, May 11, 2009

Sensationalist Media

Just a comment on a couple of interesting stories in my local paper, The Denver Post. A front-page story ranon Friday decrying the H1N1/"swine flu" paranoia that was causing people to Lysol their desks constantly, hand-sanitize themselves to death and exhibit other behaviors that verged on the wholly, terrifically paranoid.

The article continued on page 21A, where its headline: "GERMS: Difference between prudent, paranoid" directed the reader easily to the rest of the story. And then there was the next major piece of news on page 21A: "A swine-flu pandemic could infect 2 billion, WHO says".

Is it just me, or is journalistic hypocrisy reaching yet another high point in a desperate bid to keep selling papers?