Engendering fear in a community or an individual is a well practised control technique.

The Age regularly prints articles to terrorise young mothers so they do not allow their children to walk to school unsupervised or play in the park - even though statistics show children are vulnerable to family and family friends - "Stranger Danger" sounds good.

Young women are controlled by engendering fear of lurking rapists .

1930s Germany kept the population fearful of being reported to the authorities by their children, fearful of returning to hyperinflation and fearful of the Jewish menace to the extent that they blinkered their vision and common decency and humanity flew out the window. I wasn't alive in the 1930s but I wonder if there aren't parallels when Australia accepts torture of prisoners kidnapped from their homes for ransom, refuses safe haven to refugees fleeing certain death.

Mark Lawson is spot on, as is Billie who recognises that governments beating up fear every now and again keeps them in control and 'needed'.

The swine flu is another fizzer, and even the global recession hasn't stopped people from spending and getting on with their lives. It's true that jobs have been lost, but that's just another turn of the cycle that is part of our financial system.

The media does its share of scare-mongering to sell papers, but there is absolutely no excuse for governments, who are generally trying to hide something else far worse than what they are trying to scare us with.

This is what you get when you allow the media to be owned by too few people. It is all about sensationalism and hype and never about real news. Fear sells so that is what they serve up on all media platforms.
The only way to change it is to destroy the media monopolies and educate people to be more discerning and recognise when they are being taken for a mug. Stop watching commercial television and use places like OLO more.

Ban shock jocks like the parrot and his ilk. Slimey, evil bastards praying on peoples insecurities and making the whole situation much much worse. Demonising people and creating conflict where none existed. A pox on society and like a cancer they only seem to get worse as they strive to be even more rednecked and xenophobic than the previous prat.

Notice how the cycle is shortening. Not long ago it was the fires. Then we had the GFC. Then it was reffoes. Last week it was pig flu. Whats next? It is like they are wishing for the next big disaster so they can show us how compassionate they are while they make squillions. How long before they start causing the disasters so they can get a story? The media - The scum of the earth.

Hey guys, don't blame the media! Mothers worked out the value of fear back when Adam was a lad (well, maybe a bit after). Fear is a very powerful weapon as politicians know. Unfortunately some very intelligent people are not very smart when it comes to fear.

And then we have our national broadcasters who continue to preach their climate change mantras in order to pressure governments into making dumb decisions based on laughable 'science models'. Thankfully this scaremongering is finally being exposed as many scientist once to afraid to speak out can't play the game any longer knowing how foolish they look.

Runner's comment reminds me of a comment I heard early Black Saturday: "The Premier is recommending we don't travel unless necessary! I mean, come on! Its just a hot day!". From exaggeration to accusations of negligence in 4 days!
Swine flu could yet surprise people, but for now it does look like a fizzer. (I certainly hope so!) Climate change however is no fizzer. You don't get oil exploration and national jostling in the Arctic because the oil companies and governments are fooled by hype: Way too expensive for that!
The deniers however are looking very foolish. Rather than admit the evidence, they are just doing a Big Tobacco and hiring talent to spout the ignorant rubbish that they want to believe.
You assume that scientist will behave the same way that financial analysts or priests do: ie. Pour on more BS and hope no one notices how wrong they have been. I guess the dishonest cannot really imagine what an honest person thinks like, so must assume they will act as they do.
Of more concern is the suicide problem. Why is self harm the leading cause of death? What have we done in society lately to make this happen?
International research has shown: Suicide rates proportional to Rich/Poor gap and social cohesion. I'd like to blame the Howard years for at least some of the increase as he did both: He fed the wealthy at the expense of the poor, and flamed culture wars in a particularly nasty way that made people not so proud of their community. When your government is actively working against you, family tragedies can become overwhelming. Some folks just don't have that many support structures.
Reducing corruption and authoritarianism would help too, but that would involve some growing up from most management and "leaders"...

Touche Mark Lawson – and there are groups of people currently living in fear since once again, the media’s scaring the wits out of people over the re-emergence of Swine flu.

And I’m sure those who have the greatest fear will be thankful for your article - not least the Australian Pork Limited (APL), the industry body representing the hogs who want only to keep their snouts in the trough at the expense of human health, the environment and animal welfare.

Just imagine how the troughs would empty if citizens got wind of what they’re actually consuming when they eat factory farmed pigs? Goodness – and how would farmer Hogg manage on reduced profits with the 40 or 50,000 swine he has incarcerated on his individual property? Pigs dying in the thousands because he couldn’t afford the antibiotics to keep them alive?

What about the metal manufacturers who make the cages to incarcerate a sow so she can’t turn around, let alone scratch herself or the feedstock industry who supplies Farmer Hogg with pig swill, unfit for a pig?

Then there's the revenue to the public purse from the ongoing prosecutions of Farmer Hogg who keeps brutalising his pigs. And the revenue to the billion dollar, multi-national pharmaceutical corporations since the livestock industry is their most profitable money-maker.

At least the medical profession would be able to take extended holidays for they’d have far fewer patients to treat for food poisoning, antibiotic resistant bugs, heart diseases and cancers of the digestive organs (stomach cancer and the like) to which you refer. But would they be happy about that?

I suspect I’ve left a few out but surely there must be more we can do to gag the media but thanks for the cryptic message anyway Mark.

Honestly, where's the originality in these scares? Viruses? Financial meltdown? It's all been done.

Super-intelligent ferocious badgers.
That's what it's gonna take to get me to notice next time.

The media thrives on the masses being easy to scare and as reactive to threats as we are. I came across this article in Times Online yesterday.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6242029.ece

The author, Bryan Appleyard, makes some good points regarding the reason why there is so much doomsday stuff fed to us through the media and why we lap it up so enthusiastically.

"End-of-the-world stories are commonplace in every era. Once they involved the wrath of the gods; now they are disseminated by experts, usually scientists. Now, too, they are political. In democracies, politicians are obliged to address the anxieties of the people. And really big anxieties demand really big action."

“People can’t distinguish between so many voices clamouring for attention, and, as a result, they don’t engage with these issues very critically.”

The article is worth a read.

The author said:

"Better education in the causes of death may help, but I doubt it."

No way! Teach kids how to analyze and think critically and look for the real statistics. Fear levels will come down. Teach them that more Australians die each year from testing 9V batteries with their tongue than from snakebite. And teach them not to water their Christmas trees while the lights are still plugged in!

A good start would be to read the excellent "Panicology" by Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams.

Can we also get rid of that ghastly Bigpond News ad on this site? That guy really scares the cr*p out of me!

This thread is indeed an oxymoron. Everyone's tipping a bucket on the media but clearly everyone's buying their publications.

Even Mark Lawson's tipping a bucket on the media but he's:

" been a journalist for more than 30 years, including more than 20 on the Australian Financial Review. He has been a science writer and editorial writer for the AFR, and is now senior journalist and reports editor. One series of reports he edits is the AFR's Carbon Quarterly?"

Isn't the Australian Financial Review a Fairfax publication - the publishers of the Age, SMH, BRW etc etc?