Zawaya

Are the principles of usefulness and satisfying public needs still respected in media practices?

By: Saloua Charfi

In the coverage of the recent swine flu pandemic, the media tended to focus more on the number of victims than on prevention and symptoms.

We noticed that in headlines that often announce first the number of deaths, even when the article is about providing prevention instructions.
Illustrations also focus on the sensational aspect by showing a herd of pigs, which is likely to rather misinform.

Such information prevails over the Internet and on television, undoubtedly because of the time constraint which does not permit going beyond simply informing about a fact that has not yet acquired the scandalous, sensational or “noble” aspects of genocide, piracy, and other celebrity gossip.

The written press, for its part, does not limit itself to relaying information from news agencies, but it also produces field work. However, it remains bound by its status and by the major guidelines of information policy in place in its country.

It’s the case for the Tunisian press for example.

An Arabic-speaking private daily newspaper, targeting an educated middle class – and with a large readership – offered balanced information on causes, symptoms and prevention means. It even recommended making a free number available for citizens. And if it played down the event while citing the end of winter, it didn’t write about risks that come along with the tourist season, following thus, the general information policy of the country, which tends to avoid bad news, and uses euphemisms.

In contrast, a daily newspaper close to the government adopted a too reassuring tone.

During two weeks, it reiterated slogan-headlines using terms such as: monitoring, control, action plan, no cases of infection, WHO recognizes high competences of Tunisian laboratories, etc.

Precautions or symptoms of the disease have subsequently been embedded in the comforting bosom of the multitude of titles claiming the defence capability of official structures.

Other newspapers, that are rather popular with sales figures that are higher than those of the two above-mentioned newspapers, have given each party what it needs, by adopting the official reassuring tone on one hand, and offering to the people their dosage of sensationalism on the other hand.

These newspapers seem to take a little too lightly the problem by offering themselves the luxury of talking about “swine sociology”, and accusing Humans and scientists of being the origin of new viruses.