This video explains it nicely why you should keep be on the watch out for media hype. It comes from my favorite statistician Hans Rosling who caught my attention with his presentation TED 2007 and TV commentator presentation style. :-)
You’ll never ever miss an argument in a discussion about media hype once you remember the distressing statistic that (at the moment) the news/death ratio for swine flu is 8176 while for tuberculosis it’s just 0.1.
Have in mind that every time you discuss the current disease-popular-in-media, you’re not helping human lives are saved at all (on the contrary) since there are many more affected and taken by other long-standing diseases. That’s worth thinking about… should you ignore the reality and be just another media funnel?
[via Gapcast]