Fevered headlines

There are occasions when readers can get a realistic picture of some topical issue only by examining what several different newspapers say from their respective standpoints. In the case of the influenza that hit Britain in January, this approach would have brought more confusion than clarity. Not only were there flatly contradictory accounts of the severity of the outbreak, and whether it qualified as an epidemic at all. The alleged seriousness of the situation in practical terms also varied dramatically from one paper to another, in one particular paper on successive days and even in the same paper on the same day. On 13 January, for example, the Express carried the banner headline “Boy of three among dead as flu crisis gets worse.” The number of people dying in Scotland had gone “off the scale.” Yet the sole mention of the outbreak in the Independent that day was five words on the television listings page. On the previous day, the same newspaper had responded to the alleged emergency with an entire page of news plus a feature article. The major reason for such disparities was a corresponding divergence of view among various authorities. But newspapers, television and radio made matters worse, initially at least, by failing to explain clearly what was meant by an epidemic. In addition, media coverage was dominated not by the actual disease but by its impact on the National Health Service (NHS), which some journalists portrayed as close to collapse. Most newspapers relayed the disagreements in successive days. First, they carried the announcement by the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, of an epidemic. Next came the sceptical rebuttals. Ian Bogle, for example, speaking for the British Medical Association, told the Times: “I don’t think an epidemic exists.” Next day, there were renewed assertions of the flu rampaging “out of control.” Valiantly, the Daily Telegraph tried to clarify matters in a front-page story. Yet this might have confused readers even more. The article highlighted a warning from Health Secretary Alan Milburn that Britain could be heading for its worst flu epidemic for 10 years, coupled with the assertion by Liam Fox, opposition health spokesman, that the NHS was “breaking apart at the seams.”