A few weeks ago, on a night when a large number of thunderstorms and their associated tornadoes were ravaging central Illinois, a person seeking information on these storms and therefore turning to the Weather Channel would have found instead a program called "It Could Happen Tomorrow." That show describes some terrible event that might happen someday. Viewers might be excused for having tuned in hoping to see "It's Happening Right Now," a program that was somewhat more urgently needed
Likewise, people heading off to bed and thinking to get a sense of the next day's forecast first might turn to that channel, only to find "Storm Stories," a program about weather in other times. Describing what the weather was is oh-so-much easier than predicting what it will be. And there are better pictures, television in the minds of programmers being all about pictures.
There is a swarm of television channels -- Discovery, History, History International, National Geographic, Times, Science, Learning, and one or two others -- that seem to be run out of the same closet somewhere, sharing about 50 programs that pop up on each in turn. Added to their mix this year are some highly speculative disaster programs similar to the one the Weather Channel ran that night instead of reporting on the destruction of Illinois's capital.
There seems to be money in predicting doom. And it is safe to say that something terrible will happen someplace sometime. When one can predict a horrific event with any more precision than that, it can be a real cash cow.
One has to wonder, then, how much of the panicked reporting of "avian flu" has been real and how much is hype. For well over a year we have been warned that any day now this apparently virulent strain will mutate such that it can be easily spread and by the time the contagion has cleared as much as a quarter of the world's population will be dead before its time.
And one has to be a little bit amused at a story in today's New York Times under the headline "Avian Flu Wanes in Asian Nations It First Hit Hard." It turns out that in the nations where a quick and factual (as opposed to feelings-based) policy is imposed, the contagion can be knocked down before it has much of a chance to mutate. The amusement comes in seeing, also today, this from the Stamford Advocate: "City braces for possibility of bird flu." The headline alone conjures images of residents of that affluent Connecticut city cowering in their homes, perhaps peeking through the curtains from time to time to see whether the menace has made it any farther up the street.
The problem is, a story which carries the headline "City makes provision for epidemic when and if it ever comes to pass" would not draw as many readers as the one that has people "bracing" for something -- which the New York Times reports may well be controllable.
It is all fear mongering. I'd be the last to say that there is nothing in the world to fear. I'd also be the first to say (and I was, in the two books you may purchase through the links on the right) that nothing but prurient interest is served by speculative articles and programs which tell us the world will come to an end.
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