On reporting about swine and seasonal flu

I'm on a jag about flu.

We'll urge people to get their flu shots, of course. But the question that's always bugged me is, how can 30,000 Americans die a year and I haven't even heard about one, much less known one -- especially after all my years? Now, they're saying 40 percent of us will get, if not be killed by, swine flu.

As I've written before, I regularly challenge the state health department about their reporting of deaths. Last year, they reported that in one month alone, 19 New Mexicans had died from flu and pneumonia complications. I asked: "How many died of flu by itself?" "A couple," they replied. Why lump the numbers together? To make them more compelling?

The CDC says seasonal flu hits the young and the elderly the most. Even the CDC, and the state health department, will admit it's difficult to define the precise cause of death in the very young and the very old, two population groups susceptible to pneumonia, to which flu is just one contributor, but not the only one.

So I raced to the phone several years ago when I ran across a paper by a CDC research published in the New England Journal of Medicine (one of the most respected medical-research journals anywhere). The editors don't publish garbage.

The paper reported on a huge effort by CDC to get health departments in a dozen states to step up their efforts to separate actual flu deaths from all others, then count the number of young people (0 to 18) who actually died of flu. The number was 143. Remember, this is one of two most susceptible age groups.

Extrapolate the numbers anyway you wish. It's nigh impossible to arrive at 30,000 total deaths with such a low rate among one of the two groups most likely to die of seasonal flu.

You watch for it -- the media will dutifully report this fall that more than 30,000 Americans die each year of flu.

KSFR News may say that, as well. We can't disprove it.

But neither can they prove it.

I'll remain healthfully skeptical.

No hysteria, please

Ambulance chasing, aircraft crashes, swine flu...

We don't do hysteria at KSFR News. At least we try not to. In fact, I think we may go out of way to avoid the news items that seem to want to lead to hysteria.

When the four teens from Santa Fe were killed in a head-on collision. We didn't air the tape of the 911 call.

When the state police helicopter crashed in the mountains above Santa Fe, I thought about asking state police for the taped communications between base and copter. But I chose not to. When other outlets put the audio on their websites, morbid curiosity led me to go there and listen to them (maybe to get a new angle to cover the story?). But KSFR did not air them.

There's enough anguish in the actual fact of those types of events that would not be better served by repeating raw, emotional details -- at least not for us.

So, what about swine flu?

Each year when flu season comes along, I grit my teeth that even talking about it and promoting the fact that the flu shots are ready will add to hysteria. Of course, we'll urge people to get their flu shots. But I'll do it while also asking the question, do 30,000 Americans really did from flu each year? I've never known or heard of one. So, I challenge the state health department about their numbers all the time. Last year, they reported that in one month alone, 19 New Mexicans had died from flu and pneumonia complications. I asked: "How many did of flu by itself?" "A couple," they replied. Why lump the numbers together? To make them more compelling?

Now, we're confronted by not one but two types of flu. Will swine flu be more deadly? The hype makes it sound that way. Who will be more susceptible to it, the young and elderly or somewhere in the middle. The early evidence suggests it will be those somewhere in the middle.

And how many will die? It's always seemed like 30,000 Americans falling to seasonal flu each year is a lot, although I spoke with a statistician recently who says for a population our size, it's not many at all. If it's not many at all, why the hysteria? Many times more people die in auto crashes.

Yes, we'll report about swine flu. I'll even see how the state's emergency preparedness people are getting ready.

I just hope that whatever we report on KSFR News will contribute to education, not to hysteria.

Robin Lustig of BBC news has these thoughts about swine flu on his blog.

Palin confusion

The McCain campaign is not helping the media or supporters understand what's going on.

For days, the campaign has told media that thepresumed vice president pick Sarah Palin would join John McCain in Albuquerque this Saturday. KSFR questioned that appearance when the campaign sent out an email yesterday (Sept. 2) promoting the event but not mentioning Palin. We called and the New Mexico Republican party
continued to insist Palin would be in Albuquerque.

Today, the New Mexico office tells KSFR Palin will, in fact, not appear. But the
McCain campaign website still carries an event notice saying that he will be joined in the Duke City by the vice presidential pick.

Palin's name is not mentioned as that pick. Nor is it mentioned in the schedule for events before and after Albuquerque.

Heresy from a newspaper guy?

Editor & Publisher is the trade journal of the newspaper industry and its editor and writers are not easy on their sbuscribers. For one, they've been screaming for years about the lack of real journalistic coverage of why Iraq.

Now, one of E&P's columnists writes that he's actually canceled his subscription to the print edition of his local, hometown newspaper.

Columnist Steve Outing writes: "A print edition is no longer as relevant to our lives. We're flooded with information -- most of it free -- from the Web, e-mail, RSS feeds, podcasts, phone alerts, TV and radio news. Most of the information that comes in the daily print edition is not new to me. To continue to support the Camera's print edition would just delay the inevitable."

I've wondered about this, too. Before my early morning trek to my broadcast job, I trudge up the driveway to find the local newspaper print edition in order to thrown it closer to the house for my wife to read when she wakes up later.

A strange thought has crossed my mind any number of times as I've done this: That is, what if I had drivers drop off a recording this morning of what my news team broadcast yesterday? The morning newspaper certainly has some new stuff. But much of it is material gleaned from government press releases, and other sources, that we've already broadcast. Sometimes we do it in full, sometimes in brief. But 85% of the time, all local media are operating with info from the same sources.

Better yet -- instead of physically throwing a CD or a tape of yesterday's fullest broadcast in everyone's driveway, we post our most relevant stuff on our website, where it's accessible yesterday, today and tomorrow -- even next week.

My point is a broad generalization, of course. Santa Fe is blessed to have not one but two morning newspapers. They do a fine job. But so does KSFR, with much more meager resources.

The essential difference are style (they are restricted by theirs, we by ours) and immediacy.

Gov. Bill not a "spoiler" after all

Turns out New Mexicans were not asleep at the switch in large numbers. Gov. Bill got less than one-quarter of a percent of the total vote in the state's 2008 Democratic Presidential Caucus. He would have needed 15 percent to snare any delegates for the August Democrat National Convention.

But, then again, with the massive vote recount underway, who knows what the final tally will be?