By Li Hongmei People's Daily Online
The laboratory-confirmed outbreak of swine flu pandemic again threw the world into a general panic, following the SARS virus which plagued almost the entire globe in 2003 and the sporadically reported bird flu cases all these years. The governments are now racing to take actions to deter the quickly spread flu virus from becoming a global pandemic, while trying to strike a balance between informing the public without panicking them.
Finding a balance in communicating risk is not easy. In the evolution of humanity, disasters can invariably get in the way and at times prove so serious as to threaten to overwhelm the whole planet. Whether it is tainted food or an economic crisis, how people talk about the risk of a threat can either prepare them mentally to best deal with it or it can scare them into a damaging overreaction or even a massive-scaled hysteria.
With up to 149 suspected deaths reported in Mexico, the outbreak's epicenter, the WHO raised its pandemic alert level for the deadly virus to Phase 4, indicating a significantly increased risk of a global pandemic. Meanwhile, some for-profit media are responding quickly to the declaration of the most severe flu pandemic in 40 years by exaggerating the threat and peddling fear among the already panicking public.
The U.S. must be well aware of how panic-inducing rhetoric could backfire, when in 1976, a public scare over a potential outbreak of a flu virus led to 40 million people being vaccinated. But the outbreak never happened. More unfortunately, 32 people died from the vaccine. In face of the impending catastrophe, media in all forms must take more responsibility not to overhype a threat, but always to provide counterbalancing facts.
Now that a choice of words can make a big difference when communicating a risk to the general public, any conscientious society and responsible news media should bear in mind the principle that a potential crisis should not be played up. Nor should it be deliberately tuned down, as it did in China's 2003 massive outbreak of SARS, a severe acute respiratory syndrome. The initial pitfalls of hesitation, inaction, and even blunt cover-up made by the relevant authorities and media not only robbed the public of their basic rights of being informed of truth and risks, but perturbed the whole nation and, created a chain reaction toward mass hysteria, when the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
SARS delivered a harsh blow to China's capability of handling public crisis and also taught the authorities a lesson, the one written in blood and pain. In last year's devastating earthquake, both the central government and local authorities displayed an unprecedented ‘emergency preparedness,' which could be easily found in a more standardized operating procedure in coping with public crisis and a more flexible way to free up information as well as resources in case of a deteriorating mass fear and an epidemic.
Back to the case of swine flu, what' needed in media coverage is more specific contexts that can help people address the latest health concern. Predictions of risk must be couched in a tactful language for the simple reason that the very fear of the flu strain must not be allowed to become contagious and lead further to a global dread.
A nuance must be clearly detected by both PR practitioners and information providers, in coping with the unfolded public health emergency, between raising the awareness for proper preparedness and creating fear that could cause a destructive overreaction among the panic-stricken public.
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