“Think on this, that news outlets would be so interested in influencing the outcome of a US election that they would carelessly or selfishly promote hysteria and outrage and even go so far as to unilaterally call an outbreak a pandemic, sparking global panic, is unconscionable.”
(Elizabeth Prata – The End Time) Yesterday CNN, (Cable News Network) decided to unilaterally call the covid-19 flu outbreak a pandemic. I wasn’t aware that CNN reporters had global medical expertise enough to decide for the world whether the coronavirus had reached a criterion-laden level of that sort. CNN has had hidden talents all this time. My sarcasm stems from a deep anguish and a disappointment in the journalism we have come to know and either love or hate, depending on which side of the aisle you’re on. If you’re reading an evangelical blog named “The End Time”, I suspect you’re on the side where you also feel some disappointment, anguish or at least skepticism over the state of affairs in world reporting by these mainstream outlets.
I was a journalist, editing and reporting on a weekly community newspaper for almost 6 years. We printed the truth without fear or favor, even-handedly, and sticking to the principle that an informed citizenry is critical for a democracy to thrive. We also trusted the populace to make good decisions for themselves if given the facts, unadorned and truthfully. And you know what? They did.
I don’t believe it is in our purview to make decisions FOR the populace (aside from deciding which stories to cover and publish each week). We are not to influence the news, make up the news, or protect the news. The news is the citizens,’ for the purposes of deciding how they want to live their lives. That’s it.
That said, CNN mentioned in their ‘why we did what we did’ article (linked above) that the definition of a pandemic has been hard to come by. They do have a point. In this Bulletin published in 2011 at World Health Organization (WHO) by Peter Doshi, the title alone is enough to grab one’s attention
The elusive definition of pandemic influenza
In the article, Doshi makes mention that WHO changed the definition of a pandemic after 2003, and intimated it was due to pressure from CNN (CNN again) during the health issues arising from the then-scary virus of the da:y H1N1 (AKA Swine Flu).