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?