Wednesday, August 17, 2005

A fine line

There is a fine line between cautioning people about a potentially severe pandemic and causing fear and panic about it. Today Instapundit looks at the economic damage that could occur as a result of a panic surrounding an avian flu outbreak. Reynolds needs to start looking at his possible role in said panic. While he has not been hysterical in his coverage of the bird flu, he has been sensational about it. That kind of sensational is nudging him over that line.

Without a doubt, we need to be prepared for the potential of this flu pandemic, and the public needs to be aware of it. There are a lot of people, Reynolds included, that are focusing exclusively on worst case scenarios that include 25% of the world population dying and global economic depression. By having a laser focus on the worst case scenarios, they are conditioning the public to panic in a bad way if and when the bird flu does break out.

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