Crisis demands responsibility
It is unfair to put the blame regarding the ongoing public hysteria over the nCoV epidemic squarely on the shoulders of social media. While it is true much of the scare has been fed and fanned by irresponsible posts on social media, mainstream media is not exactly without its shameful examples of careless journalism.
Take the column yesterday of one writing for a Manila-based national daily. In one paragraph he wrote: "The epidemic, described by the World Health Organization as a global emergency, has given the Duterte administration the distinction of recording the first death outside China where the contagion started in December in Wuhan, Hubei province.”
While the writer did mention that the first fatality outside China was himself Chinese and had come from that country, nowhere in the column was there any effort to explain that at the time the column was written there has so far been no recorded domestic transmission of the disease. That would have gone a long way in putting things in much-needed perspective.
More damnably, in that same paragraph, the writer mentioned the WHO declaration of a global emergency. A global emergency declaration in the midst of an epidemic is a pretty scary thing that it must never be mentioned casually without a careful explanation. Such an explanation is required of all responsible journalists in order not to help fan and feed the hysteria.
But what does a global emergency mean in the context of a WHO declaration? According to the WHO itself, which took the time to carefully explain it, all that a global emergency means is that countries of the world must now be ready to allocate funds to meet emergency needs and requirements that may arise from the epidemic.
This is not to say there is no cause for concern. But concern is one thing, panic is another. Breach the thin line separating the two with irresponsible journalism and we fall dearly into a situation where everyone suffers more than he has to. To be fair, the writer may have previously written about WHO's explanation of what global emergency means.
But that is never enough. The explanation must be repeated with every mention of the term global emergency. Responsibility demands it. Mindful of the terrible consequences of terrible terms let loose on an unknowing public, writers cannot be casual or cavalier in the exercise of their craft. But of course, public interest must have been farthest from the writer's mind, seeing that it was really to criticize Duterte that the entire column was for.
Oh well, the writer and his column make for the best argument against accusations that, in light of Duterte's intent not to renew the franchise of TV giant ABS-CBN, press freedom is dead or dying in the Philippines. On the contrary, it is very much alive and well. In fact, going by this column, press freedom is kicking Duterte's ass all the time. But that is another story. In times of crisis the facts come first, not politics.
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