CarolKoster
Carol Koster
Disney EchoEar Grand Mouseter
Group: Members
Posts: 19444
Joined: April 1992 |
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Posted: April 28, 2009, 10:32 pm |
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There is a fiercely competitive news environment in the Orlando media market. If anyone ever follows the story about the murdered child Caylee Anthony and her mother Casey is charged with her murder, and you go around to the Orlando Sentinel and the four TV station websites every time there is a development in that story, you see each media entity will start putting online any shred of information and "spin" it to look like it's news. Against this context they already know Disney fans haunt the Orlando news media websites. And they know a disease epidemic in a city that depends so much on international tourism, but tourism this year is down, and tourism at places that attract crowds, and where crowds are communicable diseases can spread... It's a perfect storm. I used to work in a TV newsroom as a producer, in a much smaller city, and I know it's very commercially competitive in the news business. Millions of dollars in advertising and ratings prestige can ride on who is first, who is most complete, who is most accurate, and who gets information to the public fastest.
Things can fall through the cracks. Clearly it made sense that a foreign tourist, from Mexico, where the disease of swine flue is prevalent, could have been a disease carrier and incubated the disease in time for symptoms to be very manifest in Orlando. But while the disease is very prevalent in that country, not everyone has contracted it. And there can be agendas on the part of so called "sources", even if only to gain hat Andy Warhol 15-minutes of fame.
Clearly the threat of spread of international communicable disease is news, how it affects the tourism industry where crowds go, all of this is compelling, interesting news. But it does no one any good to spread news of disease outbreaks without getting definite and officially reported diagnosis and confirmed news from official sources. Spreading on the grapevine is so prevalent via blogs that now it's hard to know what's fact and what's made up or distorted.
I'd wish that the folks in the news business, busy as I know they can be, can pull back and catch breath, and report facts only. Maybe it would mean 24-hour news channels go out of business. But we'd easily learn to watch regularly scheduled newscasts or posted news sites with videos and sign up for alerts when updated. Facts serve the public much more than eager beaver stuff, such as what ended up happening in Orlando with this purported story of a case of swine flu at WDW.
Engage in hand-washing, and carry that bottle of Purell or Germ-X or other hand sanitizer with you, then use it. Keep a balanced healthy diet going on to boost your immune system. And wash hands!
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